


Style

by CountingGlitter



Category: One Direction (Band), Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2954795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountingGlitter/pseuds/CountingGlitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taylor thought their story was over.<br/>Harry knew it was not.<br/>And fate had a different plan.....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New York City

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of pure fiction, but it was heavily inspired by 1989 (of course), and the fact I think (personally) that Swift & Styles make a cute couple.

“Fuck. Screw it, screw it, screw it”

Dropping the searing hot baking tray onto the side I rush to the sink and allow the water to soothe my burnt thumb, “How do I even manage these things, huh, Olivia?” I murmur, directing the question to my cat who is surveying the scene intently, and perhaps with a small amount of amusement. Laughing slightly to myself I turn off the tap and my attention back to the steaming tray of chai cookies on the counter top. I look them over with satisfaction, they are pretty much the best batch I have ever made, which makes me happy since they are for Hal's Birthday. I've worked with Hal from the record label for a long time and he's become a good friend, so delicious cookies for his 34th is the least I can give him. Noticing a movement by my feet, and the brush of fur against my tights I lean down and scoop up Olivia before she can make a running leap and destroy the result of the baking marathon.

“Not tonight Livvy, you know you’ve had dinner. And besides, these are not cat friendly cookies”

Cradling Olivia in one arm I pick up my phone and head out of the kitchen towards the windows which line my Tribeca apartment. From the edge of the open plan living area I have the best view of the New York skyline money can buy. It’s simply magical.

Moving to New York had always been a dream, but never one I thought I might actually act upon. It was so different to Nashville, the City which set the scene for my humble beginnings in Country music. I knew Nashville like the back of my hand, every dive bar, the secret short cuts that would get me home fastest, but I don’t feel like I could ever know New York in the same way at all. Just when I think I’m getting there I’ll discover a new lunch spot, or a secret antiques store, and I love it. It’s fast, exciting, surprising, like a wayward lover that keeps me guessing at every turn.

Not that there have been any lovers, I remind myself with a curve of my lips. I discovered myself in New York City instead, a new version of the curly blonde haired cowboy boot wearing country girl. For the first time in my adult life I wasn’t waiting for a man to walk in and sweep me off of my feet. I feel strong, and powerful and, really, just perfectly happy. 

A sharp sound jolts me back from my reverie. My phone has buzzed into life and is casting light around the dark room. Olivia jolts from my arms and into her favourite spot on the sofa, while I pick up my phone and squint at the screen.

‘New Text Message: Harry Styles: I’m in…..’

I smirk to myself. Ah. The famous Harry Styles. Ex-boyfriend, now close friend, and the man who had finally made me put up my fence against romance for good. Not that Harry should get all the blame for my two year stint of singledom, I remind myself, that wouldn't be fair, the press can pat themselves on the back for that one. The constant lies, and stories, and the fact that every man I talked to was told, ‘be careful, she’ll write a song about you’. I was an easy joke, a one liner for award show hosts to get a cheap laugh. It was embarrassing and insulting, and it didn’t even matter that most of it wasn’t true because it was immortalised on Google like it was. So…. I quit dating. And now, two years later, I finally felt like the tide was turning. The top search results if you type my name into a search engine now? All career accomplishments, and you have no idea how happy that makes me. So I don’t have a man in my life? Fine. I found myself instead, and that seemed so much more important. 

Smiling softly, I turn my attention back to Harry’s message.

“I’m in New York. Are you?”

I make to type back and then pause. We were good friends, sure, but I had heard on the grapevine that Harry was in New York visiting Nadine. I wasn’t exactly sure of their relationship status but it was pretty obvious they were more than just good friends. Would she be happy that Harry was texting his ex-girlfriend on their romantic winter break?

I shrug the thought off quickly and respond, my fingers flying across the screen;

“Yes. At home”

Like I said, we’re good friends. It had been easy not to hate Harry and even easier to slip into the comfortable friendship we have now. Not that the press or fans could see that, I had distanced myself too far from the girl I was to let anybody draw wild conclusions about Taylor Swift and an ex-boyfriend now. My image was tightly under my control, and it would stay that way. 

Buzz.

“Fancy a walk? Meet me in Central Park in 15 minutes?”

I freeze. Then quickly put my phone face down on the window sill and walk back into the kitchen. Pulling a tupperware from the cupboard I start placing cookies into the box. Slowly. My mind is racing, and I catch Meredith’s stern gaze as she surveys me from her perch on top of the fridge. 

“What would you do Mere?” My voice breaks the silence, and I noted with surprise that I sounded unnerved. Which was just ridiculous, unnerved over Harry? It had been a long time since we meant anything to each other in that way and we’re friends, and…and… damn it, I’m going for a walk in Central Park. With a friend. 

Purposefully I stride over and pick up my phone again. Harry had sent another text;  
“It’s ok if you can’t. Maybe next time”

Quickly, I tap back; “I’ll meet you at Strawberry Fields. Don’t have your shirt undone, it’s freezing outside”

He’d like that. We always did have the best banter.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

I slip my feet into my Winter boots and pull on a coat, moving fast before I can lose my nerve. I close my front door behind me and pull my hood over my head, before moving to knock on the flat across the hall. 

My security team were on it, they would realise in minutes that I had left unannounced, assume I'd had been kidnapped, and send out a search party all over Lower Manhattan before you could say, “Swift and Styles were spotted in Central Park”.  
Frankly, that’s the last thing I need.

Graham answers the door. “Taylor! Were you looking to go out? I’ll call the car.” He’s reaching for his shoes and picking up the remote to switch off Jimmy Kimmel, talking all the while, “It’s pretty late, huh? Nearly 11.30. Sure you don’t want to stay warm and I can go pick up whatever you need? It’s no bother”.

I smile warmly at him and place a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Gray, go back and watch TV, it’s fine. I just wanted you to know I’m heading to meet a friend….”

He stops for a second and narrows his eyes, “Well, then I sh-”

I interrupt, “Alone.”

Graham steps back, but holds my gaze. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea” he says evenly, “It’s more than my job to let you go out alone, and you know it”.

I sigh and drop my gaze to the floor. Maybe this is all too much, all this effort for a short walk in the park with a friend? Not for the first time, I wonder how I got here. Does a normal 25 year old need to ask permission when she leaves the house? 

I can feel Graham’s concerned eyes surveying me and I know. He gets it and he’s not trying to be an ass, but this is his job. Keeping me safe is his job. 

Grahams steps forward into the hallway and closes the door behind him. I lift my eyes up to meet his and he gives me a small wink. 

“How about I wait in the car?”


	2. Strawberry Fields

We've parked up on 71st street and it is empty. 

“Maybe because it’s freezing and nobody else is crazy enough to go out for a walk” I huff under my breath and Graham shoots me a quick smile before creasing his eyebrows together,

“So how long do you think you’ll be?”

I shrug, “Can I call you? I can’t imagine I’ll be too long. Whack the heating on full blast ok? It’s a cold night, I don’t want you to get pneumonia.” 

He lets out a small chuckle at that.

I pull my gloves on as I step out of the car and head into the park. It’s December, and it’s bitterly cold in the City. Even the ever present paparazzi outside my door had left when they thought I’d hibernated this evening along with the rest of the sane New Yorkers. So I left my apartment bundled up in warm layers and Graham and I had grinned at each other as we hopped into the car and noted the absence of flashbulbs and loud voices. And as I plugged my seat belt in I allowed myself a small smile knowing no one could trace me to this park tonight, or to Harry. I could only hope he had been just as careful in covering his steps.

I can see him now, hovering by a bench, waiting for me. Wrapped up in a long black coat, hair pushed back from his face and one hand shoved in his pocket. No gloves, I note, crazy man. He’s kicking gently at the grass as he talks on his phone. 

He looks up as he hears me approach and smiles brilliantly at me.

"I gotta go. I'm with you though right? If anyone asks...." He slides his phone into his pocket and answers my unspoken question, "Jeff. He's covering for me, apparently I'm in the middle of a Monopoly marathon"

I grin, "apparently I'm in bed"

He laughs, and sweeps me into a hug. And it feels, nice, normal, and I’m warmer than I was at any rate. 

“Sorry I missed your Birthday” He says, pulling back slightly. But he’s still close, I can feel his breath. 

“Oh it’s no big deal. You and I both know it would have just turned into a media circus if you had have come”

He smirks, “isn’t everything we do a media circus?”

He’s right of course, but the press would have blown this up. They’d have been dating within an hour, and she’d have written a song about him in two. And would it have been worth it? For either of them? It surely wouldn’t have helped Harry’s fledging romance with Nadine.

He takes my arm and we start to stroll slowly, matching pace. 

I clear my throat, “So what are you up to in New York?”

He looks at me from under his lashes and grins, “Seeing you”

He’s such a flirt. And the thing with Harry is, he can’t even help it, it’s an ingrained personality trait. It’s hilarious, and it earns him a nudge in the ribs.

“Here” he pulls a hip flask from his pocket and winks, “I thought this would warm us up”

“What is it?” I crumple my forehead and sniff the silver flask gingerly, “Ugh, is that-”

“Whiskey, yeah. Go for it Tay, it’ll warm you up” He’s such a bad influence, but I pinch my nose and tip a little down my throat, even though I hate whiskey. I’m so cold that the inevitable burn I feel from the fluid is actually welcome - even if the after taste is vile.

I hand the flask over to him and wipe my mouth with the back of my glove, as I watch him drink. 

My curiosity is peaking. I’m still not sure why he invited me here tonight, and I’m even less sure why I agreed to come. This late night wander in Central Park is nice, but something’s off. Clearly. This isn’t a balmy Summer evening, it’s December, and there’s frost on the ground and Harry is inviting me out for a casual walk? Did I mention that it’s Midnight? 

I go in with no pre-amble;

“Where’s Nadine?” 

He stops walking and raises an eyebrow in my direction, “We broke up…. not that… well…. we were just seeing how it was going really, so” he pauses, and furrows his brow “It’s not a big deal. It wasn’t serious”

Oh. 

“Sorry for bringing it up”, I squeeze his arm, “I just felt awkward being here, like this…” I trail off, but I know he understands and his eyes light with a spark of comprehension. “I get it. You thought I’d blown off my girlfriend to hang with you, and it made you feel uncomfortable. Sorry, I should have been clear.”

I shrug and it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, “It’s fine Harry. I know you’re not a total dickhead, I figured something had happened”

He pulls my arm back into his, “Are you casually pointing out that all my relationships are incredibly predictable and end around the 3 month mark or am I just sensitive?” he assumes his face into one of hurt, which is bullshit. He IS a disaster when it comes to relationships, but then so am I. 

“You’re sensitive” I smirk, “Now give me some more whiskey, I’m freezing my ass off here”

We stroll in silence for a while, passing the flask back and forth comfortably. I’m starting to feel tipsy but I don’t say no to more, I like the feeling and I’m getting used to the taste. 

“How did you do this?” Harry breaks the silence by running his hand across my injured thumb. I’d removed my glove so I could easily unscrew the lid off of the flask and the cold air felt good against the heat of the burn, so I left it off. He didn’t miss a trick.

“Uh baking” my thumb is throbbing. Funny, I’ve not felt the pain until now. 

He examines it closer, “You’ve run it under tepid water, right?”

“Yes Harry” I laugh suddenly. He’s a mass of contradictions, this man. Teen heart throb, style icon, passionate baker. “It’s not the first burn I’ve ever had”.

He blushes, and pulls my hand into his which catches me off guard. We are close enough that I can feel his breath on me and I know how it would look if someone walked up right now. Suspicious, which it isn’t. It isn’t. 

I’m not prepared for what he says next, although based on how close I am to him I don’t why,

“I can’t stop thinking about you” he says it softly, like it’s the biggest deal in the world. The last time he said that to me I leant in and kissed him.

I don’t now. I jerk away like he’s hit me.

“What are you talking about Styles?” I say, and my voice is low, but dangerous. The use of his last name is deliberate; you are friend zoned. No go. “This ship went down two years ago. We’re over, and you are completely off your face. Have you taken something?”

I’m gesticulating wildly and he is frozen to the spot, running his hands through his hair. He looks miserable, but I’m too angry to care. 

“Don’t say you don’t feel it too!” He cuts over me, and I’m too shocked to reply so I turn and I run. Away from him and towards the gate.

He is hot on my heels, and yelling my name, but I’m nearly at the exit. Nearly home free and back to Graham. 

Except, fuck, the gate is closed. With chains. 

We’re locked in?

Harry reaches my side, out of breath and furious. 

He looks grimly satisfied when he sees I’m going nowhere fast,

“Looks like we can talk this out after all” 

I turn away from him and slump onto a bench. He is off my Christmas card list.


	3. Butterflies

My phone battery is dead. 

Of course.

There is some next level mind fuckery going on tonight and I should have known it wouldn't end with us trapped in the park. Cold panic washes over me, this cannot be happening. Graham will be freaking out, god knows, and imagining the worst. He's probably already called in the rest of my security team, if he hasn't called the cops instead. This could be a full blown PR disaster.

I glance over at Harry. He's pacing on his phone, and we've barely said a word to each other. Finally he ends the call & heads over to me, "Jeff says the fence gets lower over that way" he points into the distance. "It's a 10 minute walk and then I guess we just jump over..."

He does not look happy, but I'm guessing that's more to do with me than being trapped in a park.

He holds out his phone, "do you want to call anyone? Let them know-"

"No", I say stonily, "let's just get out of here"

He turns away from me, switches his phone to flashlight, and starts walking. I follow a few steps behind. The key is just to not get into a conversation with him I tell myself, then it'll all be fine. Silence is golden.

He slows down to match my pace, "I'm sorry" he says finally. 

"Don't worry about it" I mutter.

I won't look at him, even though I can feel his eyes piercing onto me and my stomach lurches. 

Butterflies.

They were something I hadn't felt in a while. And now they are demanding attention, and this is ridiculous because it's Harry. Been there, done that, threw away the T-shirt. 

I can only blame the whiskey, these are not the feelings of a solvent woman. 

We walk in silence until we reach the fence, my heart is hammering out a beat to every step I take and I don't dare sneak a look at Harry. 

"So this it" he gestures, "come on, I'll help you over". He's looking anywhere but me, and the thing is....

"Wait" I blurt and his eyes snap on to mine.

I swallow hard. The thing is..... Nobody would ever have to know. The little voice in my brain is crazy, but loud. It's your secret it says, nobody has to ever know. One kiss, a last kiss. You are in control here, he wants you. 

I move between Harry and the fence. His mouth forms my name and god damn my forever romantic mind.... It all goes into slow motion.

So I lean forward and kiss him square on the lips. Because I can and because it makes me feel powerful and because I want to. It's chaste, but familiar. Comfortable. And I like being close to him, I can admit that much to myself. 

I lean back & place a firm hand on the knot of his scarf to steady myself. My cheeks are burning and his eyes burn into me, fiery green, if you can imagine that, and suddenly the butterflies are gone and I'm left with a dull ache instead. The steady pound of desire, uncurling itself in my core. And... I can't help myself, I move closer and neither of us can agree in hindsight who moves in first but suddenly we're kissing. And it is anything but chaste this time. It's intense, aggressive even. I feel him push his tongue inside my mouth, teasing me, and I groan. I thought I'd forgotten this. Him. I can feel his hair curling under the tips of my fingers, and his hand gripping my waist, and I know even if this is it, if all we ever have is this moment, it'll be enough. Because its hot, so hot.

Harry breaks our embrace first, surprisingly. He leans me back in his arms, and I'm a cliche. I can't remember where my muscles are let alone how to use them, and I'm pretty sure my face looks like Olivia's after she walks into yet another wall - gormless, surprised, possibly drooling. Basically, I'm mortified. 

This is Harry. 

Harry Harry Harry. 

What am I doing? I need to walk back to the car and ask Graham to drive me to Lena's and then she can confirm this is a bad idea. I will agree. She'll slap me around the face a few times so I don't feel quite so turned on. I will go home. I will go to bed. I will put this down as a lesson learned, not to be repeated and harry and I will resume our friendship after a brief cooling off period. We will text sporadically, and clap for each at award ceremonies & live our separate lives....

Except.

Except he's still looking at me like that. And my head is screaming 'no no' & it sounds awfully like my publicists voice. But I am on fire. I have this tingling reckless feeling so I fly at him again, catch him behind the head and press my lips to his. It's been a long time since I lost control like this and it's a rush. He's kissing me, hard, and I can tell he can't quite believe his luck, and me? Well I can't quite believe how stupid I am. But that's by the by. 

I can't tell how long it's been when I finally break away and stumble backwards, punch drunk. I just know that I could stay here all night, with him, like this. 

"We can't.... This is... This is so bad" I stutter, but I sound unconvincing even to my own ears. 

Harry looks almost angry, "I don't care..... I don't care any more Taylor. I want you"

And I can't hear this, because my resolve is already wrecked and I just don't trust myself any more. Not in this situation.

"Please Harry, can you just help me over the fence?” I can feel tears spring to my eyes, and I’m furious at myself for allowing things to get this out of hand. He looks at me steadily, calmly, and then sighs. He pulls himself up and over the fence, and jumps down the other side. 

“C’mon. I’ll catch you” he reaches out his arms and gives me a reassuring smile. I don’t hesitate, and pull myself up, silently thanking all the work I’ve put in at the gym this year. I pause, one leg straddled either side of the fence.

He’s staring up at me like I’m everything. Christmas, Birthday’s, and a number 1 album all rolled into girl form. I shake myself, “Ready?”

He nods, and I jump off and into his arms. He staggers slightly and grips me a little tighter before steadying us both. “Ok?” 

“Ok” I confirm. 

“I’ll walk you back to your car” he says, and he seems nervous. His hands are shaking slightly, and reflexively I grab his wrist. “Thank you” I say, and I mean it. I can feel his pulse under my finger tips, and as we walk back my hand slips naturally into his.

Tomorrow I'll blame the whisky.


	4. Friends with Benefits?

I drop Harry’s hand as we approach 71st street. 

Graham is standing by the car, white faced, and tapping urgently into his mobile. He looks up as we walk closer, “what the hell?” he starts, but i cut in- 

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. We got locked in the park and my battery died so I couldn’t call and we had to climb over the fence, and I’m so sorry” I know I’m gabbling, and Graham probably can’t make out a word, but he has such a pissed off Dad face on him and I’m so nervous. This is a complete mess. 

He softens slightly and puts his mobile away, “You know I was about to call the rest of the guys in? I thought something terrible had happened, jesus, Taylor. Don’t ever do that to me again” his eyes shift to Harry who is stood awkwardly behind me and he does a double take. “Hello again Harry” he says coolly and I die a little inside. 

“Hi Graham” he says, lifting his hand a little in a wave. I don't think my face could be any redder. 

“Shall I drive you home?” Graham asks. 

I nod mutely and take a step back from Harry, but my feet just feel like they’ve been filled with lead. My hand burns from his hold.... and my eyes flicker to the 99p tattoo on his wrist just peeping out from under the sleeve of his coat, and I flashback to running my hands across his bare chest as we laid on his sofa naked, and spent, and giddy and I would point to his tattoo’s and ask for stories and he would always oblige and I would laugh until I hurt. I’m surprised to find myself examining him, memorising him……. curls over his collar remind me of late nights and early mornings where I would do nothing but watch him pretend to sleep and gently play with his hair until he inevitably rolled over and grabbed me and....

Screw it. “Get in the car Styles”

I can feel Graham’s head snap towards me, but he covers it well and opens the passenger door for me before getting in the drivers seat without saying another word.  
Harry’s head jerks up as well and he’s grinning at me like a naughty school kid, and I think ‘you knew, you absolute bastard, you knew’.

______________________________________________________________________________

 

We pull up outside my apartment and I almost lose my nerve and tell harry to go back to his hotel. 

But I don't. Instead I get out of the car silently, shoot Harry a look over my shoulder and motion him to follow me. Graham follows us inside but tactfully says nothing, just waves away my apologies for this evenings antics and bids us goodnight before taking the stairs up two at a time.

I can see why he wouldn’t want to get in the elevator with us.

We hover in the entrance hall waiting for the lift to arrive and I loll against the side and impatiently press the 'call' button repeatedly. Harry is hunched, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on me. 

We haven't said a word to each other since we left the park, but my head has been stuffed by cotton wool like the start of a cold and my body is tingling. I want him, and as the elevator arrives and we step in, call me crazy, but I can feel the electricity crackling between us. 

Harry has me up against the wall before the doors have even closed, and he's kissing me fast and urgently, and I'm in a time warp and in a position with him I swore I'd never find myself in again…. but I don't hate it. 

The doors open on the top floor - my floor - and I grapple with my keys pulling them from my pocket. Harry is behind me, his hand gripping mine and his lips teasing the delicate spot behind my ear. I'm so distracted I don't realise my hands are shaking until Harry gently takes the keys from me & unlocks the door. I shudder slightly and step away from him to push the door wide open, its almost a grand gesture 'look at my new home' and we both stand there for a few minutes. I'm feeling the enormity of what has happened tonight sink in and I have no idea what to do next.

Luckily, I think, Meredith provides the perfect distraction for my unsure mind and wanders up to Harry purring and rubbing his legs. At least she's glad I brought a guest back at any rate, and, I may be drunk but she seems to remember him.

"Meredith, hey" harry leans down and rubs her behind the ears.

"So.... Do you want a drink or something? I have water, or coke, or alcohol?" I'm talking really fast because the sight of him here, in my house, in my fresh start, is tripping me out. 

I have no memories of harry here. This apartment was my blank slate - my bachelorlette pad if you like - and now my ex-boyfriend is here playing with my cat and looking entirely at home.

It's true, Harry is playing with Meredith as if this is the most natural situation in the world. He looks up and smiles, "just water thanks.....Come here" he pats the floor and I weakly collapse beside him. He's sitting cross legged with Meredith in his lap, and she is looking pretty smug, she loves the attention. 

He covers my hand with his and starts tracing circles on my skin. "I should get your water" I mumble, but his hand is running up my arm now, under the sleeve of my jumper, "doesn't matter" he says hoarsely, "lets just sit for a bit". Meredith leaps out of his lap as he shuffles closer to me on the floor. She's clearly bored now his attention is on me, and she flings us both a dirty look as she stalks off.

We're close enough that I can see the whites of his eyes, and his Adam's apple moving under his skin. Up and down, up and down. He's nervous and somehow that gives me courage.

"We don't have to you know" I place a hand on his jaw and meet his eyes, steadily "you can go and we can forget this. We're complicating everything"

His eyes are unwavering on mine, "I like complicated...."

So I grab him by the neck of his jumper and kiss him. He responds enthusiastically, and snakes his arms around my waist, pulling me into his lap. I'm straddling him, and he's still cross legged, hands firm on my hips. I run my fingers through his hair and tighten my thighs around him, emitting a groan from his lips, and I want him. So badly.  
His hard mass is straining through his jeans and I grind against him, we’re both wild eyed and frantically kissing each other on every bit of exposed skin and it’s heaven. I’m biting his ear and reaching my hand down to his cock when he pulls back. His lips are a bold, sore red, and stand out against his pale skin, and it makes me want to drag him down the hallway into the first bedroom we can reach. Actually, here, the floor, it’ll be fine-

“Love…. I…. I don’t think we should do this” he says, and my hand slips from his shoulder in shock.

What? What? “WHAT?” I push myself up and off the floor and round at him, “are you serious? You had me up against the wall of the elevator gagging for it, but you ‘don’t think we should now?’” I mimic his accent, partially for effect, partially because it’s helping me keep the anger in my voice under control. 

He stays on the floor, breathing hard, but his eyes are soft. “I want us to be more than just fuck buddies Taylor”

He is unbelievable. Talk about straying from the script, “Well what if fuck buddies is all I’m offering?” I snap.

He stands up, and brushes down his jeans before picking up a curious Olivia and sitting down on the sofa with her. “I’m prepared to wait for you” he says with a small grin “Want to watch CSI?”

It’ takes all the restraint I have not to smother him with a throw cushion.


	5. Fade into view

He’s still here

He’s helped himself to popcorn from my kitchen cupboards and is lying horizontally across my sofa with Olivia lounging on top of him looking perfectly happy. Olivia, that is. I narrow my eyes at her, don’t get too attached kitty, he’s not staying.

I’m so mad at him I can’t even begin to describe it. He instigated the walk, and the feelings, and the kiss, and then the elevator kiss, and he got cold feet? He’s laughing at some dude having his insides pulled out on CSI and I’m sat here with my legs crossed and my back straight trying to work out how to have sex with him without the feelings and without begging, and certainly without this relationship he has suddenly decided he wants. 

“Want some popcorn?” Harry waves the popcorn under my nose but I’m too distracted by the bowl it’s in, “Where did you get that bowl from?” I snap.

“Ahm your cupboard” he looks confused.

“Making yourself totally at home then?” I say sharply, grabbing a handful of popcorn and sitting hard back in my seat. 

He grins at me, “I thought we’d take this slow, but sure, I could move in”

I nearly choke on the popcorn and the horror on my face is clearly totally apparent because Harry bursts out laughing, “Tay, chill. It was a joke”

Sure. A joke. Where is my sense of humour? “Right” I choke out a laugh, but it feels like several muscles in my face have frozen permanently. 

"This doesn't work you know" I say, and my throat is burning because this exact line has been running through my head for hours, and I can’t believe I’ve been bold enough to say it. To bring up the past I’ve been running from for years, and to talk about it with him. Not my mum, not my girlfriends, not in gentle musings with my guitar, but with the very man I swore I’d never open myself up to totally again. 

His head jerks up, "what?" and his eyes catch mine before I can dart them away. 

"Us. We don't work" I force it out, and honestly I'm expecting him to nod, or agree, but he grins instead and I'm thrown. That smile.

"Says who?" he hits back at me immediately, like we’re in a debate team or something, and his grin does not leave his face. He’s glad I brought this up, he was waiting for me to crack, to challenge him on this.

"Harry, this is not a joke. We've tried before, we're completely incompatible" my defences are weak, my voice shrill with panic. The truth is, I thought it had been so long I didn’t need to shut Harry out anymore, didn’t need to keep all my gates up around him. I was firmly over him, have been for years, but then he turns up tonight and I remember everything in a rush. How good it was, how quickly we fell in love, how he challenged me in ways I couldn’t even imagine, how he broke my heart when I realised he was too scared to knuckle down for the long haul, and how I left him before he could do any more damage to my heart. 

I’m frozen in my memories and I don’t realise Harry has left his couch and moved over to mine, taking my hand in his before I can stop him. "No, we're not" he says softly, moving his fingers slowly across my wrist, tracing gently, "We're not. You're the only girl I've never been able to get off of my mind, and besides," he sends a self satisfied smirk my way, "when you were on top of me on the floor I didn't hear you saying we were incompatible then?" 

I snort, "that was when I thought you wanted sex and not a rehash of a messy, complicated relationship" 

"I've changed you know" he says steadily, locking his eyes onto mine. Daring me to disagree. 

"I know" I swallow hard, and he pulls his hand out of mine and stands up to move over to the window. The exact same place I was standing this evening, pretty pleased with my life and with singledom, not knowing that an avalanche named Harry Styles was heading my way. 

"And so have you" he doesn’t turn to face me and all I can see are his messy curls, but still, it’s not a question but a statement. 

"yes" I reply quietly, and unfold myself from my safe position on the sofa. I’m unsure why I’m moving closer to him and my mind hums silently in the background ‘danger danger’, but I’m intrigued and however much I know that I can never act on these feelings, I want to know what’s going on in his mind. I need him to explain to me what is going on in his mind.

"Why now Harry?" I stand slightly behind him, a shadow reflected in the glass window pane, and he takes my breath away like he always has. His perfect features slightly blurred by cold frost creeping up the pane, and he looks up at my reflection hovering behind his shoulder before he turns to face me. Lifting his hand up, and sweeping it up my collar bone to my neck and finally resting on my cheek. He sends prickles down my back and my act of indifference is transparent, because my cheeks are flushed at his touch and my breath is caught in my throat. We’re drinking each other up like we’ll never get another chance to do this, just the two of us like it used to be.  
He takes a small step back, away from me, and clears his throat "Because I know if we don't take this chance now, we'll always regret it. We'll lose each other, and find other people, and they'll never be enough. Any other love won't be enough" his voice is scratchy, hoarse, "you know it, and I need you to stop pushing me away because you're scared" the last bit is almost angry, and it cuts me because it’s true. 

"I-I'm not scared" I stumble over my words, "I'm realistic. You have a tour, I have a tour. I have paparazzi that stalk my every move, so do you. We were living every day in a goldfish bowl before Harry, I can't, I won't, do that again" 

"Not every day" he reminds me, "and we weren't as smart then anyway, we didn't have a plan. We were just naive and unprepared for all the shit that came with falling in love with another popstar"

I have to crack a smile at that because he's right. I will always remember the sinking feeling when we stepped into Central Park that day to find ourselves in the middle of a paparazzi scrum with every step we took, every glance at each other spun a thousand pictures, and a covert kiss in the lift was on Twitter before we’d made it to the hotel room. 

"We should have known. We were both tabloid fodder long before we met each other" He raises his arms in a shrug, and I laugh. Talking about the paparazzi brings me closer to my reality, onto safer ground. It helps me rationalise that we would never work, not with both of our daily antics chronicled by the media, not separated by oceans for weeks at a time. 

"We know now," he pushes, "we can do it better. I was young and stupid and I didn't fight for you, but give us another chance and i will never make that mistake again" his eyes burn into me, pleading, and I’m a mess. I turn away before he can see the tears spilling from my eyes, and walk slowly away from the window picking up Olivia and cradling her into my arms. Harry’s footsteps are behind me, but he doesn’t utter a word. Two years ago I would have given everything to hear those words from him, but I thought that time had passed, and it’s clear it hasn’t. The entire time he was speaking I had this little bud of hope, this idea that maybe we could make it work that he was speaking total sense and I just had to let that little bud take hold and carry me. I snuggle Olivia into my neck ignoring her protests, and simultaneously ignoring Harry hovering behind me anxiously. 

“I think you should go” I say quickly, my face burrowed in fur.

I feel him start behind me, “Taylor, I-”

“No” I cut him off, “I can’t do this Harry, I’ve come too far. Please…. just go. Please."

“Ok” he says quietly, and I turn away so I don’t have to watch him leave. He yanks the door open, and I can feel him looking at me. The girl holding the cat, the girl with the number 1 album, the girl who can’t let him in anymore, “I love you” he says firmly and then the door slams and he is gone.

I wait until his footsteps echo down the stairs and then I let the sobs come, wrenching out of my gut, and the tears fall freely and I remember what heartbreak feels like once more.


	6. Coming Undone

“Happy Christmas Eve eve!” Karlie yells as she barges through the door of my apartment, “Are Mom and Dad Swift here yet? I brought mulled wine!” she presents it to me with a flourish and a ear to ear smile, but I eye her warily. 

It’s been three days since Harry left my apartment and my life for the second time. The initial tears came and I let them, I let myself feel everything I’d been so afraid to share with Harry that night and on some level it felt like sweet relief. I didn’t cry for my broken romantic dreams, or the fairytale words I’d have once given anything to hear, but I cried for the boy I’m too scared to love. I lay on the floor and I wept as Olivia and Meredith kept their distance, and I pulled my duvet into the living room and here I’ve stayed. In my den, reminding myself of everything I’ve let slip through my fingers. The men I let stay, when I should have said ‘go’ and Harry, who turned out to be everything I’d been looking for when I finally stopped searching. The man who turned up when it was already too late.

Before Harry arrived I’d been so excited for my first Christmas in New York. I was planning everything to perfection, since my Mom was normally the hostess at Christmas I wanted to prove I could nail it. Give my family the best Christmas they’d had in years, so I went all out with the jazziest decorations and the largest tree. I planned the menu and decided to bake 13 different types of cookie, just because an excellent host should always give her guests choice. I even found reindeer onesies online so we could all open our presents looking stupid. I was on it, but somehow since that night with Harry I’ve lost my buzz. My excitement for Christmas and for seeing my family is down the drain, and I’m frustrated at myself. I did a double take as I watched Karlie bound out of the elevator minutes ago because I’d completely forgotten we had plans. A girls brunch before she jets back to St Louis for Christmas and I’m still in my sweat pants staring at her like a deer in the headlights. 

“Woah, are you ok? No hug, no best friend excitement? No Christmas excitement?” Karlie’s voice drops several pitches and she peers at me anxiously taking in my baggy pants and mussed hair, “wow, Tay have you left the sofa in days? Like, have you actually left it to sleep in your bed?” She’s picking her way around the couch, sharply taking in the duvet piled haphazardly, the 3 empty pizza boxes, countless mugs, and my laptop on top of the mountain.

She lifts her eyes to mine and drops her bags, “What’s going on Taylor?” and she has an edge of concern in her voice which I instantly want to soothe. I worry about other people, they don’t worry about me, it’s my thing.

I laugh a little, off key, “It’s Christmas, Kar! It’s my time off, I felt like slobbing around for a few days”

She raises a suspicious eyebrow in my direction and places both hands on my shoulders, “Okaayyy, I get that. I do. But your parents are arriving today and unless you want them to pull out a conservatorship on you I suggest we get this place cleaned up” she pauses and surveys me, “and you need to get cleaned up” she claps her hands, “Shower. Now. Bin bags are under the sink right?” she strolls towards the kitchen, and I feel a complete rush of affection for my best friend, “Karlie Kloss” I shout, and she whips her long frame back around “Yes?”

“Love you” I say, cupping my fingers into a heart shape and holding it out in her direction. 

“Love you too, even though you are living in squalor right now Swift!”  
I roll my eyes and move towards towards the bathroom, but she calls after me, “Get clean, and then we are talking”

I laugh slightly. I’ll deflect, I’ve always been good at that. Karlie has no reason to think this is about a boy, let alone Harry. I’ll tell her I’m exhausted and it’s half true, the last few months of promoting 1989 have been insane. Wouldn’t it make sense that I would hole myself up for a few days and not clean?

I step into the shower and feel the cool water run over me, it’s welcome. I truly didn’t realise how gross I felt, but as I lather shampoo into my hair he’s back again in my head. The words, the way he looked at me that night, all pressed on repeat in my mind and I start to wonder if I’ll ever be free. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

I’m not sure how long I was in the shower for, lost in my thoughts, but all I know is I got intense with the exfoliator and my apartment is in a lot better shape. My skin is raw, but the pizza boxes are gone. God bless Karlie Kloss. I may not choose men well, but I sure can pick a best friend.

Karlie is sitting on the couch, her back to me, and I creep up behind her and ruffle her hair, “You are amazing Kar, this place looks normal again-” I break off and take a proper glance at her. She’s frozen with my laptop balancing on her knees and I know exactly what she’s found on the screen. In my darkest moment at 3am this morning I just wanted to hear his voice, and I was desperate. This’ll be hard to defend to Karlie I realise, she’s probably already come to the correct conclusion in her mind. Even if I’m not transparently obvious my internet search results are. 

“It was open,” she starts defensively, “and I was cleaning, and,” she purses her lips and looks confused, “and, it was on Youtube on a search page of Harry Styles interviews. So I’m a little weirded out right now”

“We’re friends” I shrug, and the words fall out of my mouth unaided before I can calculate how ridiculous they are. “I just wanted to see how he’s doing”

Karlie’s eyebrows shoot up and she snorts, “wait, so you’re friends and you can’t text him to find out how he is? You look on YouTube? This is complete bullshit” she snaps her fingers at me, “ I need the truth here, because a few things are not adding up”

“Such as?” I counter.

“Such as the state of you, the state of this place, your internet search results, and the fact you haven’t sent me a smiling emoji in days” Karlie leans forward in her seat and ticks points off her fingers, “talk to me, I know something's up”

I strain away from her eyes and focus over at the window where Harry told me how he felt. It feels like a distant dream but the heavy thud in my stomach reminds me that it wasn’t. I haven’t heard from him since that night, but I’ve been on the edge of calling so many times. Stalking fans on tumblr I’ve found memes of Harry which alternately make me burst out laughing or crying, but always bring the dull thud into more focus. 

“I saw him” I blurt out suddenly, and I seem to being doing that a lot lately. Letting my mouth overtake my brain. 

Karlie understands immediately, “Harry”

“Yes” I pull my eyes away from the window and focus back onto her. 

“Ok”, her mouth opens and closes and I can see her trying to form the right questions, “and, like, what happened?”

“We went to the park-”, I start, but Karlie interrupts, “Wait, the park? And you didn’t have a zillion camera’s climbing all over you? Were you in disguise?”

“At 11 at night” I finish, flashing her the first smile I’ve broken in days. “Not in disguise. Just the only idiots stupid enough to go for a walk that late”, Karlie’s mouth is wide open, and I can tell she’s having trouble processing this whole story. She knows my past with Harry, only she doesn’t entirely because she wasn’t there, she wasn’t in my life at the time. So she’s heard my edited stories about him, my protestations that I won’t go there again, that I’m happier single and waiting for the right guy. Protestations that I absolutely believed myself. 

“So whose idea was this walk? I thought Harry was visiting someone here…” she trails off. I know she is alluding to Nadine and it reminds me Harry was never in New York to see me. He came here for her, and it unsettles me a little though it shouldn’t. “They broke up” I offer with a shrug.

“Right. Then he invites you for a walk at midnight?” Karlie says, and she’s smart, because she never loses eye contact with me knowing this story needs coaxing out. 

“It was supposed to be just friends, I hadn’t seen him in a while and we were due a catch up” I say slowly, trying to take myself back to the beginning of that night. I’m trying to remember what I thought when I got his text, and the butterflies started to creep in and I reminded them, ‘Friends; and pushed them down again before I grabbed my coat and left the apartment. But I knew. On some level I knew.

“So I went, but we got locked in and one thing led to another and-”

“You had SEX in the PARK?” Karlie screams, and bounces on the sofa, her eyes wide.

“What? Are you kidding?” I throw a cushion at her, but I’m laughing now, “No! We kissed!”

“Oh,” She’s half disappointed, but shrugs and then starts to turn her hands over in a ‘hurry up’ motion, “Carry on, carry on, next chapter, tell me everything”

So I do, and it feels so good spilling my guts out to her. She doesn’t interrupt and she doesn’t judge, but I’m crying as I tell her how I asked him to leave, and she only says, “Oh Taylor,” sadly, like there’s no advice she can offer me.

I drag the back of my hands across my eyes to wipe away the tears that I didn’t want to show Karlie. She’s curled up on the sofa, long limbs folded over each other and hands clasped, staring at me. 

"Hellooooo" a voice carries down the hallway and I recognise it at once: Mom. "Taylor? Honey?"

"In here" I jump off the sofa, smooth down my skirt and glance around me. Not perfectly tidy, but it'll do. Karlie whips her blonde hair around as she grabs my laptop and clicks off the offending web page, before dashing over and wiping the remaining tears from my cheeks with her fingertips. “Smile” she whispers as footsteps approach the door,

"Well hey, Happy nearly Christmas everyone" My mom pokes her head into the room as Austin darts around her and politely kisses Karlie on the cheek before punching me on the arm, "what's up Sis?" 

"Ugh, Happy Christmas to you too" I swat him back and he laughs and leaps back to the door to drag my moms case in, "normal bedrooms?" He asks, and I nod as he disappears down the hallway.

"Where's Dad?" I question as my mom leans into me a gives me a hug.

"He stopped off to do some last minute Christmas shopping. So," my Mom claps her hands "It was an early start today. I think we need coffee"

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

My Mom busies around my kitchen adding sugar, adding milk, chatting all the while and throwing questions my way. I can feel Karlie's eyes lasering into my back. She’s concerned. 

"Do you?" Says Karlie under her breath as my Mom carries steaming mugs of coffee into the living room. She halts in front of me, blocking the door.

"Do I what?" I whisper back, simultaneously wondering why we're talking so quietly. I'm balancing two cups of tea and a plate of muffins steadily following my family. "Do you love Harry?" she hisses, "like for real?"

I jolt, spilling tea down my front onto the floor and shoot Karlie a dirty look. We are not talking about this. Not now. I need to get through, no enjoy, Christmas with my family and then.... Then I can continue pretending like the last few days never happened, and keep my career top priority. Karlie is studying me so I stare straight back as blankly as I can. No more feelings talk today, I've decided Harry Styles and Christmas cannot co-exist in my mind. 

"You do" she says, and she answers her own question, "oh my god, you do" Her voice rises higher and I ssh her frantically, "Karlie, my Mom and Austin are here. We are not having this conversation now,”

She rolls her eyes and shuts the kitchen door then turns to me, her eyes glistening, "so what are you gonna do about it?”

"Nothing" I say firmly, "there is nothing to do. I told him to leave and I stand by that decision. I don't want a relationship and I was fine before he walked in here declaring his love all over the place" 

"Uh huh" Karlie passes me a cloth with a knowing look I don't like, and points to where I've spilled the tea. So I crouch down and start to mop up quickly, not before sending a glare in her direction.

"You know that girl? That girl who wrote 'it's a love story, baby just say yes'. You know her? I'm just kind of sad she's so bitter now" I snap sharply to look at her and there's a smile playing about her lips.

"I'm not bitter Karl's, I'm realistic" I mutter furiously, she does not get to pull my songs out of the bag here. 

"Soooo you're realistic, but you do love him" she says slowly, and she's twisting her hair around her finger and the knowing smile is back.

I sigh, put the cloth back in the sink, and close my eyes. "Yes, I love him" 

She claps her hands together and does a little squeal, "I knew it, I knew it." 

She's still bouncing on the spot when my Mom walks back in the kitchen a minute later and laughs out loud at the sight.

"What's up girls?" She says, looking between us both. Karlie dancing, me frozen to the spot unable to even digest what I've just admitted out loud.

"It's Christmas Eve Eve and I'm excited!" Karlie beams and throws me a wink.

"Taylor?" My Mom is searching my face, and I know she's concerned. She'll want to talk later, find out what's making me quiet when I was so excited on the phone just days earlier.

Karlie is still making faces at me as we all walk out of the kitchen, and I pull them back at her trying to improve my mood.

New York Christmas is on, I tell myself firmly. No more heartbreak.


	7. Curious Minds

I pull my legs up towards my chest and stare out the window. The flickering lights of New York City wink back at me and I let my eyes drift out of focus till I see nothing but multicoloured blurs. Sparkles, I call them. Morphing into fairy dust if I squint ever so slightly. I do this when I feel alone or overwhelmed, just sit here and watch the crowds below until it all starts to make sense again. Till my problems don’t seem so significant. I’ve been picking people out of the crowd tonight, almost my version of counting sheep. Giving them names, back stories, detailing their love lives in my head. Wondering if they’ve ever had their hearts broken, and how many times. Guessing if and when they found love, how did they know? Because people say ‘you just know’, but what if you don’t? What if you only ‘know’ when it’s too late, and you spend your whole life trying to find someone who will ‘just do’. What if you never really ‘know’, you just hope.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been here, just watching. I slipped out of bed shortly after turning in, unable to succumb to sleep, and padded down the hallway quietly. Tiny steps, trying not to wake my family. Trying to avoid the questions my Mom has had hovering on her lips for days. 

I flip my phone over and press to illuminate the screen. 3.21am, Saturday 27th December. Later than I’d thought and a brand new day. I sigh, and make to shift my legs off of the seat and onto the floor. Sleep needs to happen, or there will be more questions and side long glances tomorrow when I can’t keep my eyes open. 

“Hey” I freeze, one foot on the floor as my brother shuffles towards me. He’s rubbing his eyes, and edging around the furniture, “What are you doing up?”  
I shrug, shifting my eyes back to the sidewalk below, “I could ask you the same thing”. He sits heavily down opposite me and yawns loudly, “Needed the bathroom and then saw you here. Staring out of the window like a crazy person. You ok?”

I pull myself back in again, resting my chin onto my knees. Austin used to be my go-to relationship counsellor, but despite the fact he’s heard all the sorry details of my love life past I can’t bring myself to tell him about this latest development. As Karlie left in a rush 4 days ago she hissed ‘call him’ over and over until I pushed her in the elevator and told her I’d ‘think about it’. She’s been harassing me every day since over text, ‘are you going to make a move?’, ‘Can you at least pull yourself together and wish him Happy Christmas?’, and finally the last text, a few hours ago, ‘Taylor, just get your shit together. YOU LOVE HIM’. Her parting line spins in my head as my brother looks at me in concern, “Yeah. Yeah I’m ok”. I force it out, and it’s half true. I’m ok, I’ve felt worse, been through worse with men than this. This dull, numbing, void is nothing compared to the heartbreak of finishing with Harry for the first time, or the red raw pain when Jake and I broke up finally. This is still an entirely unwelcome feeling, but it’s bearable. I can deal with it. Austin pulls his lip slowly through his teeth with a sceptical expression, “Mom thinks something is going on with you”

Of course. My Mom has been creeping for days, pressing gently, asking open questions about my pre-Christmas celebrations with friends, wanting to know what’s made me so jittery. She innocently mentioned watching the Times Square Ball Drop on New Years as I film with Ryan Seacrest, and I jumped a mile. All I could picture was Harry and I years ago, giddy as anything and clutching each other in a sea of people. I thought that would be the first New Year of many that we’d spend together, but it seems laughable how quickly we unravelled after that. How ‘I love you’ became ‘I can’t do this’ within weeks. My Dad didn’t seem concerned until I zoned out during Scrabble on Christmas Day. My highly competitive streak out of action and out of touch, I hummed over my letters struggling to think of a word - any word - that wasn’t connected with Harry. When I came last for the fourth game in a row my Dad joined me in the kitchen, trying to keep it light as he helped me load the dishwasher. “You know your Mom is thrilled,” he started, “But, I don’t know, something doesn’t sit right when she beats you in Scrabble. Everything ok?” I shrugged, “just ate too much and now I’m tired” then put the last fork in and closed the dishwasher with a finality. He didn’t push it.

I don’t know if I’ll be so lucky with Austin. Emotionally he’s pretty switched on, and more than once he’s told me how I feel about something before I’ve even figured it out myself. 

“I’m fine” I say finally, shifting position slightly on my seat “Mom always worries”.

He locks his fingers together and pushes them out, stretching. He’s pulling the same move I do when trying to coax information. Trying to keep his body language casual, non threatening. Act like the information he’ll glean is of no consequence to him anyway, “Well I can’t blame her this time. You have been a space cadet these last few days”. His voice is low, calm, but I see him suck in some air before he speaks again, “I wondered if it was boy problems”. I blanch, and I don’t know why I’m so surprised he’s hit the nail on the head so soon. He’s talked me through so many disastrous romances that I’m like an open book in front of him. 

“Why would you wonder that?” I ask, and there’s an edge to my voice like I’m being quizzed by a reporter and not my brother, “you know I’m not seeing anyone”. I turn my attention back to the street below, avoiding his gaze, people watching. I love how New York never quietens, even early in the morning at Christmas time. There is always somebody else out there, somebody apart from me awake at this hour.

I feel his hand on my arm. Cool and firm. Grabbing back my attention. “I haven’t seen you this way in a long time” he says almost ignoring my response, and there’s a smirk playing about his lips. “I’ve been playing a guessing game over the last few days and I can’t figure out who he is”

“Good” I shoot at him, “stop guessing” and the smile spreads over his face then. Wide and surprised. He snaps his fingers directly in my face, glee apparent, and I curse myself inwardly. Way to make it obvious, Taylor. Way to open yourself up to more questioning. So I unfold myself gingerly ignoring the tingling blood rush to my legs, and climb off the window seat. My bare feet slap against the wooden floor as I move a few steps away from my brother. “I have to go to bed now. I’m tired” I say shortly and turn away.

He calls out as I reach the hallway, a loud stage whisper, “Hey Sis, don’t you want to know my top suspects?”

“What?” I hiss, unable to stop myself swinging back around. Curious. 

“My top suspects” he repeats, knowing full well I heard him the first time. The smirk is back, the all-understanding, all-seeing, smirk. “I went through all the possibilities, all the guys I know about, and I’ve narrowed it down to two”. I square my shoulders up and pace slowly back towards him, the last thing I need is for my parents to wake-up to this particular conversation. “Go for it” I hear myself say coolly.

He grins in my direction, “So, you want to hear my thought process here as well right?”

I fling myself onto the couch and throw him a dirty look, “It’s three in the morning Austin, your thought process will not be necessary”.

He raises his shoulders and then releases them in a ‘what can you do’ shrug. I feel almost positive that he won’t pull the right answer out of the bag, because as far as he’s concerned Harry and I have been dead in the water for a long time. But still, I don’t like the idea that he knows I’m obsessing over a guy. That he figured it out days ago, and I can’t have been hiding everything as well as I thought. “So” he says, no louder than a whisper “I thought about Matty-”

“Matty?” I yelp, “What on earth?”

“I know, I know” he waves my protestations away. “You were never really that bothered. Just wondered if something had changed there?”

“Um, no” I scrunch my nose up, pulling a face at him. “It was never like that with Matty. Not at all. Don’t be gross”

“Okay” he braces himself against the window and lifts his jaw staring at me thoughtfully, “so you know who was in New York recently?” 

Damn, I feel myself tense. It’s obvious where he is going with this, who he is referring to. Harry was photographed all over the city and I know Austin will have aligned the dates in his mind before bringing this up, realised the timelines all match up to my unexpected coolness over Christmas. Clearly I was wrong when I thought Harry could never be on his suspect list. I take a deep breath and run my fingers down the seam of cushion next to me, trying to buy time. The room is completely silent, moonlight streaming across the floor, and in the corner of my vision my younger brother is framed in the window, watching me. Waiting for my next words. 

“I don’t know”, I breathe out slowly, “Why don’t you tell me?” It’s the only way I can think how to answer, to put the ball back in his court and I watch as realisation dawns in his eyes. “Right” he says, and he draws it out, biting on the edge of his tongue. “Harry. But you already knew that”. I tuck my feet under me and focus back on the cushion seam, pushing my fingers back and forth across the new material. Puckering it up under my fingers and then smoothing it back down. Austin surveys me anxiously, “Did you see him?” 

I shrug, keeping my eyes down “Does it matter?”. He laughs slightly, softly, “It matters, since he clearly left a lasting impression on you”

I roll further back into the couch, and purse my lips. I had half hoped that I could avoid this conversation, although I’ve known my family have been trying to instigate a deep and meaningful with me for days, worried at my lack of Christmas spirit. At the back of my mind I knew that Austin, at least, had guessed my lacklustre behaviour was down to a man and I feel frustrated. Frustrated that Harry walked out of here and I can’t just be normal about it, can’t seem to hide my sadness in front of my family. A massive part of me wishes I could just be back at work already and have my career to take my mind off him, be busy enough that I forget this whole thing. 

“What happened?” he gets to the point, “What’s got you acting crazy?”

Deep breath. “We met up, we kissed, he told me he loves me, I told him to leave”. 

Austin whistles out his breath and shakes his head at me, “you’re serious? Like, for real, that actually happened?”

“Yeah” I say. He’s incredulous, eyes wide staring at me. Having trouble digesting the situation, because this is all totally out of left field. “Jesus. But you don’t love him?”   
My eyes fall back onto the cushion. This time it’s zip is infinitely more safe to look at than in my brothers direction. Not when I’m about to serve up some honesty. “It doesn’t matter what I feel Austin. Harry and I don’t do relationships well. Not with other people and certainly not with each other”. I can feel myself almost pleading with him to understand what Harry and Karlie seem unable to. This is a bad idea, no matter how right it feels, a relationship with Harry can only be a bad idea. He runs his hand through his hair, “So you do love him?” he asks, eyebrows raised. 

“Like, I said-” I start with a voice like steel, but he cuts me off quickly with a shake of his head. “Taylor, it matters. How could it not matter that you love him?” I gape at him and struggle to think of a reply. He’s right of course, this whole scenario sounds ridiculous out loud. If you love someone be with them, no matter what the cost. Isn’t that what all the fairytales, and love songs tell us? Isn’t that what I tell people through my music, be brave in love. Except on paper this is all crystal clear, but once I run it through my mind it’s anything but. New memories tangle with old ones and my brain keeps pulling up the bad ones like a tragic slideshow. All I can remember is the paparazzi, and the death threats, and the angry fans. Everytime I put myself back to 2012 all I can remember are the bad things, and his reluctance to commit to me. To even book a plane ticket to come see me on tour, make plans for his Birthday together, all those things went by the wayside when he couldn’t get his act together. And besides, for all his big words the other night he left when I asked him to, didn’t fight it, and suddenly I just feel sad. Empty. “I told him to leave Aus and he went. Just like that” I say, and I run my teeth across my dry lips. 

Austin rolls his eyes, “He told you he loves you and you asked him to leave! Cut the guy some slack, what was he supposed to do?”

“I don’t know” I admit quietly, “I just keep going over it all in my head. Like, I thought I was past this. I didn’t think I was that girl any more”.  
“You thought you were past falling in love” Austin states wryly, “go figure”

I stare down at my hands. As much as I’m loathe to say it out loud, he’s right.

“I’ve been burnt so many times, it just doesn’t seem worth it” I say, and it’s more to myself than him, “what’s the point of trying if it doesn’t last?”

He smacks his hand down on the window frame and barks an incredulous laugh in my direction. I jump at the sounds, and he laughs again, “That’s a terrible attitude. Are you serious right now? You sure you’re my sister? A guy stands in front of a girl asking her to love him. The girl most definitely loves him, but she refuses to grow some balls and tell him that. That’s one crap film ending, I’d ask for a refund at the movies”. He’s shaking his head at me, almost as if he’s seeing me for the first time in years. Realising how much I’ve changed.

“You romantic, you” I say sarcastically, “shouldn’t you do this therapy stuff for a living?”

He leans forward, and loosens his shoulders, grinning at me. “Nah, I’m way too honest. Stupid people do stupid things, I’m gonna tell ‘em. What are you gonna do?” he says it like a challenge and I raise an eyebrow at him, “Right now? Well I should probably sleep. “ I respond tartly, but he waves that away with a sweep of his hand, “Shut up. I meant about Harry”. 

I shake my head, slowly “There’s nothing to do. He’s not exactly blowing up my phone right now”. I wave my silent phone in his direction, not sure exactly what point I’m trying to prove. 

“Well you should blow up his, prove you want to do this” he says eagerly, like he has to spell out the solution for me. 

“Aus, I never said I wanted a relationship with Harry. In fact, I’m pretty sure I said the opposite”. I actually do feel tired now, this conversation is exhausting. I thought out of anyone Austin would understand. Know how I’ve been treated in the press over the years and support my decision to keep my life uncomplicated.

He shifts his position on the window seat, never taking his eyes off me. “I know what you said, stop making excuses. He’s a good guy and you love each other, why are you making this so complicated?” He’s looking at me like he barely knows me, like he can’t understand why this is all so different from my point of view.

I ball my hands into fists and knock them gently against my forehead, fighting the urge to scream. “Because it is complicated! We lead insane lives, we’d never see each other, and then if you add on the pressure with the fans, the media, the paparazzi. How would it ever work?” I feel like I’m begging him now. Stop making this harder on me then it has to be, help me leave it. Help me to move on and think about something else. But he won’t. “Taylor, if you love someone enough you make it work” he says, seeming exasperated now. Like he’s explaining something to a small child.

“It’s too late anyway” I say suddenly, and I feel so drained, “I really screwed up”

“Go to him” He says, like ‘duh’, and I jerk my head up, “What?”

 

“Get on a plane to England and surprise him”. He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and I drop my jaw in a horrified gape. “He’s at home with his family, I can’t intrude like that! It’s Christmas!” I splutter over my words, and then “besides, what would I even say?” I say the last part like it’s a plan I would even consider. Which it isn’t. I’ve never heard a worse idea in my life. I couldn’t possibly. 

Austin spreads his hands out, palms up, and grins at me. “You could start with ‘I’m sorry. I do love you but I was just a gigantic wuss and too scared to say so’”  
“In no way does that sound like a good plan” I purse my lips at him, and try to figure out when we swapped roles. When did my brother become the romantic instead of me?

“It’s better than the non existent plan you were working on. How’s moping around lovesick working out for you?” he says sarcastically.

I roll my eyes at him and stand up, cutting the conversation. “I’m glad we talked Austin, but really, I need to go to sleep now”

He looks at me seriously, “Don’t mess around here Taylor, you’ll regret it forever if you do”

I stare at him for a few seconds, before turning and making my way quietly back to my room, closing the door softly. My heart is racing and I sit down on the edge of my bed, trying to sort through everything Austin just said. I’m not sure when he became so wise, or such an authority on love, I just know he made an awful lot of sense. With fumbling fingers I pull open the drawer of my bedside table and reach inside, retrieving my well-thumbed passport. I sit there for a few minutes, just holding it, mind working frantically. I couldn’t, could I?


	8. Right Here

I’m sitting in the car outside a pretty cottage in a quiet cul-de-sac. It’s pitch black outside but I can just make out the roses trailing across the ridge of the front door and the family of wellington boots propped up next to a green shed. It’s everything you’d expect from a quiet country road in rural England, and for a moment I imagine that I live here, in this tiny cottage. 

A foot nudges mine, pulling my out of my reverie. Austin is next to me, eyebrows raised and dressed casually in jeans and an old ‘The Eagles’ tour t-shirt. “Which house is it?” he asks. I raise my finger across and tap lightly on his window, “That one” I say softly, and we both stare across the road at the red brick house. It’s the largest on the street, but it also fits in perfectly with all the beautiful little cottages. Great care has obviously been taken to restore it sympathetically. My eyes settle on Harry’s car in the drive. I knew he’d be here, but even so the confirmation is enough to restart the butterflies. My stomach has been churning all the way here. Austin dragged me onto the plane, coaxed me off the plane and into the car, and now I’m sat here trying to remember calling my management offices in the early hours of this morning to request my plane back into service. I’m not sure what possessed me to be so insistent on an early morning flight, but my exhausted brain clearly wasn’t working properly because with the time difference in the UK it’s actually 11pm right now. Not exactly a civilised time to turn up unannounced. 

“Maybe we should come back in the morning” I suggest slowly, “it’s super late”

“No way” Austin says, taking off his seatbelt and turning towards me. “I’m not giving you a chance to back out. Anyway, they’re clearly still up”. He’s gestures towards the house where light is glowing from the downstairs. I bite my lip, but he’s right. I’ve taken a flight to England to talk to Harry and I can’t turn back now. Snapping open my seatbelt, I reach for the car door, “Ok, wish me luck” I say quietly, and push open the door, letting the cold air sweep in. 

“Hey, Taylor?” Austin pipes up again, smacking gum against his teeth. “Yeah?” I say, pulling back round to look at him. He grins at me, “Considering you’re about to confess your undying love to Harry you might want to check the mirror”. I glare at him and slam the door shut. Pulling my handbag onto my lap, I dive in and retrieve my makeup bag. The compact mirror doesn’t lie. My hastily applied mascara has smudged, I have drool on my chin from my fitful attempts to sleep on the plane, and my hair is less tousled, more crazy lady. “You can thank me later” Austin sing-songs cheerfully, as I pull items out of the bag and apply them quickly, finishing with a drag of a brush through my hair. I survey the mirror one last time and frown, not exactly the way I wanted Harry to see me, but I’ll do.   
“Ok?” I ask Austin. 

“Yeah” he knocks his hand gently against my shoulder, “now go get him Sis”. I roll my eyes, trying to ignore the hammering in my chest. “I don’t know how long I’ll be” I say softly, “guess it depends” I let my sentence trail off, and my gaze falls into the front seat where Graham is sitting. He gives me a tiny thumbs up and a small smile, so I square up my shoulders and step out of the car. I can feel my adrenaline going, almost like I’m about to step onto stage in front of thousands of fans and perform. I turn back to Austin one last time before I close the door, “Aus, if this doesn’t go well then I never want to talk about it again” I burn my eyes into him, willing him to understand, but he rolls his back at me. “Taylor, stop being so dramatic. The only person who can fuck this up is you”. He waves his phone in my direction pointedly, “Now go, and if you try and leg it up the road then Graham and I will chase you and we will body slam you to the ground”. Graham coughs slightly in the front seat, and I can see his shoulders shaking slightly as he holds in a laugh. 

“Thanks for the the support” I say frostily, and slam the door hard, with a final dirty look at them both. I walk slowly away from the car, buying time, and pick my way carefully across the road. There’s no streetlights, just a faint glow from a light positioned over the garage which lights my path. My stomach is turning over like I’ve just done six loops on a rollercoaster and I mentally chide myself to keep my nerve, pushing my balled hands into the pockets of my coat to keep warm. England isn’t quite as cold as New York, but still, I should’ve packed gloves. 

Not that packing for the weather was on my agenda at 3am this morning, as I sat on my bed and with shaking hands dialled up my team and asked for a 9am take-off. Then I put the phone down and pulled my holdall onto the bed, throwing in clothes from my fresh pile of washing, not giving a second thought to what I would actually need. Not daring to hope that I may need more than just an overnight bag. Clearly I was a little louder than I intended because Austin heard on his way back to bed and poked his head through the door, allowing himself a smug smile. “Dude, are you actually doing it?” he had asked, and stepped over my pile of laundry to high five me. “Yes, and you need to come with me” I had said, almost desperately, “please Austin, I’ll freak out otherwise”. He’d folded his arms, and questioned my sanity that we would leave our separated parents in New York alone, without at least one of us there to keep the peace. But I’d begged and pleaded, and eventually he’d picked up a notepad and written a letter which detailed precisely nothing, but promised we’d call, dropped it outside Mom’s bedroom and then hotfooted it to the airport. We’d walked off the flight to countless missed calls and voicemails and she’d called again as we were driving here pretty much incandescent with rage, and Dad yelling audibly in the background about a family Christmas and priorities. Austin had shot me a glance, and I’d mouthed ‘just tell her’ before looking back out the window and watching the countryside flash by. He’d kept it brief, but she got the picture after he dropped in Harry’s name and our current whereabouts. She’d sent me one text straight after, “Follow your heart xxxx” and I almost welled up.

My feet are crunching slowly across the gravel, and I wince at the sound, and turn back around to look at the parked up car. I can’t see through the blacked out windows, but I can hear Austin in my head hissing ‘go on’ and I remember Graham’s discreet thumbs up so I boldly step up and hover my finger over the doorbell. Now I’m this close I can hear the activity coming from the house, excited chatter and laughing, and I realise with a sinking feeling that Harry and his family are clearly not alone. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat and push my shaking finger onto the bell before I can second guess the situation. I’ve come this far, the only option is to see Harry. I can hear the loud peal of the doorbell echo throughout the house and cause a lull in the chatter, and I strain to hear as a woman speaks. “Was that the doorbell or am I going mad? Isn’t it nearly midnight?” I cringe a little as I recognize the voice; Harry’s Mum.

“Could be Mike” someone else, a man, says, “he finished work late, said he might pop by after for a few beer’s”

“I’ll get it” says another woman, Gemma, and I can hear her leave the room and walk towards the door, towards me. The chatter in the house resumes but I freeze, trying to run words through my head, think of a coherent sentence to greet Gemma with as her footsteps draw closer. I haven’t seen her since Harry and I broke up and while I know Harry is close with his sister, I don’t know how much she will know about the latest development in our relationship. I don’t know how to behave, or what to say, because I’m pretty sure nobody is expecting me to walk through this door, least of all Harry.

I hear her twist the door to open it, and at the last minute decide to stumble backwards off the step, realising I’m weirdly close to the doorway. 

“Heeeeyyyy” Gemma says brightly as she pulls the door open, and fixes her gaze onto me. She’s blonde now, dressed in ripped skinny jeans, and a black studded jumper. She’s smiling down at me, but her eyes widen when she realises who I am, and her face snaps in shock. 

“H-hi” I stutter, trying to fill the silence. “I just uh-”

“Oh my god” she says quietly, interrupting my nervous stammering. “Oh my god, Taylor”, and she’s still frozen to the spot, but a small smile is creeping onto her face. 

“I’m so sorry” I say quickly, heat rushing onto my cheeks. “It’s Christmas and I shouldn’t be here, but-”, an incredulous laugh bubbles out of Gemma and she grabs my arm and pulls me into the warm hallway, slamming the door behind us both. “Oh my god” she says again, and my vision starts to adjust to the bright light. We’re in a wide hall way with high ceilings, decorated in neutral tones like something out of Elle decoration, and lined across the wall in gold gilt frames are pictures of Harry and Gemma in various stages of childhood. Tinsel in every colour is draped everywhere - over mirrors, around door handles, twisting up the stairs, and around a picture of Harry’s first day at school. Gemma’s eyes are searching my face and she grabs my hands into hers, intertwining our fingers, “what are you” she starts, before shaking her head. “I mean, does-”. She stops herself again and just looks at me. “He’s been a mess” she says finally, “come on” and before I can stop her she tightens her grip and pulls me into a room full of people.

Twenty at least, filling every inch of sofa and floor space. Some faces I recognise, but most I don’t. I spot Harry’s Mum in the corner, champagne in hand and holding court with a group of people by the Christmas tree, and her husband Robin, one arm balanced on the mantelpiece and the other around a friends shoulders. There’s a table pushed against one wall lined with half finished plates of food, and the coffee table is full of champagne and beer bottles. Mostly empty. The TV is switched on to Radio 1, with the new James Bay song gently filtering through the speakers. There’s a happy, giddy, festive atmosphere in the room, and I curse my early morning decision making, because I so clearly shouldn’t be here. This is Harry’s family time, and I should know better. I could have called him, arranged to meet after Christmas, sorted it all out somewhere neutral. Instead I’m here. The ex-girlfriend turning up at a family party on a whim, not even managing the courtesy of a warning phone call. 

Gemma is still clutching my hand as we hover in the doorway, unnoticed, and she gives it a supportive squeeze before dragging her gaze across the room. Automatically my eyes follow hers and then I see him. Lying on the floor, flat on his stomach and resting on his elbows, he’s laughing with an older man who is reclined in an armchair. Long hair pushed behind his ears and a few days worth of stubble on his jaw, his smart shirt is unbuttoned exposing the tattoos on his chest. He looks good, hardly the mess Gemma said he was, and I feel my pulse speed up automatically. 

“He’s been depressing all Christmas and we knew it was because of you”, Gemma whispers, “Can you both please get your act together?”

I push my fringe across my forehead and fix my eyes back onto Harry. He’s chatting quietly with a friend now, biting his lip every so often, and leaning into hear them talk over the music. He laughs suddenly, throwing back his head and grinning at his friend and then he catches my eye on the way down. The laugh dies on his lips, and he just stares at me, eyes wide.


	9. Cards on the Table

It might have been seconds since Harry locked his eyes onto mine, or it might have been minutes. All I know is neither of us have moved an inch, and I can’t read what he’s thinking, feeling. I focus my eyes slightly, and pull him into sharper definition. He’s trembling ever so slightly, frozen in place, but I can see the shake on his shoulders. His friend is still talking, gesturing animatedly, not yet aware that Harry is distracted. I feel my breath coming in small shallow bursts, because we’re dancing around here. Neither of us moving a muscle, Harry in shock, me because I don’t dare to. Don’t dare to show my hand before I know what page Harry is on, how he feels about me showing up here unannounced. 

He moves an inch, shaking his head slowly and blinking a couple of times. Like he’s woken up from a deep sleep and he can’t quite figure out where he is, what’s going on. I run my teeth against my dry lips, acutely aware of Gemma’s presence beside me and her eyes flipping back and forth. 

“I need some fresh air” I mumble, turning my head in Gemma’s direction but determinedly not looking at her. I don’t stick around to hear her reply, just turn and walk out of the room.

My heart is racing, drumming out a beat, and my head can’t keep up. I’m picking apart the way he looked at me, wondering if I expected a different reaction or just hoped for it. I pull open the first door I come to, at the very end of the hallway, and slip inside taking great care to close it quietly.

I find myself in the kitchen. Moonlight is cutting through the windows and reflecting onto the floor, and it calms me slightly. The noise from the living room is reduced to a humming in here and so I move to the window over the sink and open it. Fresh air sweeps in, blowing my hair into my eyes and I wince slightly pushing it back out of the way. Never in a million years would I have imagined myself in this situation. Sneaking around my ex-boyfriends Mother’s house because I’m too afraid to be in the same room as him, too afraid to tell him how I feel and let him in. Tear down all my walls and start again. And for all Austin and Karlie’s hopeful romanticism I still have this horrible little pit of fear in my gut, the ‘what if’? What if everything that happened in New York was just a knee jerk reaction to a frustrating two years of singledom on both our parts, and this is just the epilogue in a chapter of events spanning years. What if this is meant to be the end of us, just a final goodbye. There is a huge part of me that is out and out terrified that he’s changed his mind since he left my apartment, realised that this is a bad idea and set to putting it behind him. I close my eyes, trying to hold back the tears that push behind my lashes. Too late, they spill out, running down my cheeks and dripping onto the collar of my coat. 

Leave. I need to leave now. 

“Taylor?”. A hoarse voice breaks through the darkness matched by soft footsteps. 

Soft footsteps I didn’t hear come in, and a voice I’d recognise anywhere. I pull my palms across my cheeks, hastily wiping away the tears I didn’t expect to shed tonight and only when I’m confident my cheeks are dry do I turn around to face him. 

His arms are hanging loosely by his side and I can place the look in his eyes now. It’s quizzical, apprehensive, and he’s tense. The space between us is heavy with unasked questions, and all the things he never said to me until last week and the things I’ve never confided in him at all. The unspoken words that have hovered on both our lips for years. I don’t trust myself to speak, so I wait, pressing my back against the counter worktop to keep myself righted. 

“I can’t believe you’re here” he says, his voice catching on the last word. 

“You didn’t call” my voice is only a tiny echo in the quiet room, but my edge is defensive. He blanches and his eyes fall to the floor, confused, but only briefly as he moves them back to mine. 

“I didn’t get the impression that you wanted me to” and there’s a challenge in his voice as he answers me.

“I don’t know what I want Harry, let’s start there” I reply sadly and it’s true, honestly, for all my impetuousness in hot tailing it to Cheshire I still don’t know. I want him in my life, but as a boyfriend? I can’t even answer that to myself, let alone to him.

“If you don’t know what you want then why are you here?” his eyes are soft, but his voice hard. No nonsense, and I know for every time he stomped all over my heart I’ve done it back to him ten fold. We’re in a mess of our own making and I’m struggling to see a happy ending to this. I can’t see what would make this time any different, but still, I owe him honesty. And I owe it to myself.

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you” it comes out in a rush and I see a spark of something light up his eyes. I’ve just repeated his words to me in the park back to him, I realise. If I was hoping for some originality, to keep some pride back then I think I’ve just lost it. My cards are on the table now. Game on Harry. 

He moves closer to me. His movements are delicate, approaching me like I’m a startled rabbit that may just run off if he moves too quickly. I can’t promise that I won’t, but I hold my breath as he moves into the stream of moonlight in front of me. His skin lights up, illuminated, and it brings everything into sharper detail. He tilts his jaw slightly and I’m drawn to the thin scar under his chin, caused by the snowmobile accident that December so long ago. It’s a tiny mark, an injury that faded down to almost nothing after a few weeks and you’d only know to look for it if you knew. The accident feels like such a long time ago now It almost feels like I experienced it with someone else because this new Harry is so far removed from who he was. He’s a man now, not the curly-haired boy who stole my heart all those years ago and then let me down. 

Except, underneath it all that boy is still there. His cheeky grin is unchanged and my skin still burns at his touch. The easy familiarity is still there, the inside jokes and glances that only we understand. I don’t know how I thought that ever went away, because now he’s in front of me again I’m remembering all our encounters since our break-up. The ones I anticipated and prepared myself for, standing in front of my bedroom mirror fixing my hair and insisting out loud “don’t get drunk, don’t kiss him, stay on the other side of the room” in the months after our break-up when my friends suddenly became his as well and we were at all the same parties. I became practised at avoiding his gaze across rooms, I’d walk up and politely brush his cheek with my lips and make myself scarce after a few pleasantries. 

But then there were the moments I could never have steeled myself against. The moment I caught his eye mid-way through my acceptance speech at the AMA’s and almost lost my train of thought, almost forgot everything I wanted to say to the fans, because his eyes were burning into me with a mixture of such pride and something else that at the time I couldn’t place. I left straight after the awards, jumped into a car with Karlie and danced the night away with my friends all the while seeing the way he whistled at the end of my speech playing over and over again in my head as I spun around the dance floor. I’ve spent the last two years running from him, keeping our tentative friendship under a rock, firmly hidden from the press and the fans scared of untrue rumours flaring up. Scared of throwing away everything I’ve worked so hard for the past few years, and losing my identity again, losing the respect I’ve gained in the industry. I thought about that look again as I headed back from the AMA’s after party in the early hours of the morning, and I placed it as longing, and then stored it into the back of my mind because it frightened me to think what I might do if I registered it. If I thought about it for too long. Now I’m left wondering if he caught me up just in time, slipped in before we both shifted again and moved back out of each others lives for good. 

He stretches across the space between us and catches my hand. Our fingers weave together cold skin pressing against cold skin, and I flinch involuntarily. “What are you so scared of?” he whispers, “talk to me”.

“I’m scared of letting you in” I exhale slowly, and my breath is caught. “but I’m even more scared that I’ll lose you and never know what could have been”.

“Don’t you think I’m scared too?” he says, and his expression is almost fierce. “But I can’t spend the rest of my life feeling like you’re the one who got away. We owe it to ourselves to try. We can’t not try”. 

I can’t ignore the pleading tone in his voice. The same way I spoke to my brother when he insisted I had to try or I would never know, the same way I begged Karlie to stop talking about it when she insisted I call Harry to tell him how I feel. 

“What if it doesn’t work out?” I can feel my bottom lip shaking and I bite onto it, hard, fighting to keep the tears in check. 

“Then we tried” there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips, “and that’s all we can do”

“I keep thinking this is a bad idea” I say softly, “but then you kissed me last week and it’s all I’ve been able to think about since”

The corners of his mouth quirk up slightly, “you could’ve said that at the time”

I shrug slightly, and the first genuine smile I’ve felt all week spreads across my face. “I was a little in shock. You rocked up for a friendly walk, I didn’t know what to think”

He’s laughing now, cheeks creased into dimples and he pulls his hand in, pulling me closer before stopping and creasing his eyebrows together, frowning. “You’ve been crying” 

“I freaked out a little, wondered if I’d done the right thing by showing up here”, I shrug slightly and grip his hand tighter. Harry breathes out and runs his fingers gently across my cheek, “I shouldn’t have walked out last week, but you did reject me quite forcefully” he says, “I’ve been a mess, didn’t know what to do”

“Gemma said” I tell him, pulling softly on a curl over his ear.

“Of course she did, I might’ve….. I might’ve asked her for some advice” he rolls his eyes and I giggle, “What did she say?” 

“Well apparently everyone knows I’ve been madly in love with you for years, and it’s about time I got my act together and won you back” he says drily, with a wink.

“Really?” I widen my eyes comically at him. 

“Really” he says steadily, “but maybe we needed to figure it out for ourselves”. He pauses and kisses my shoulder gently. “Let’s do this” he says softly, “For real this time, ok?”

I nod, reaching a hand up to his face and running it down his jaw. His stubble is hard under my fingertips, and his smile fades into something more urgent as I run my hands into his hair. “Promise me” he says, “Promise me we’re both in this together?”

“Yes” and I bite my lip, holding back a smile. 

“No cold feet?” he warns, narrowing his eyes at me. Gently mocking.

“I won’t if you won’t” and I lean forward and kiss him. Just a gentle kiss, but a promise of something more lingers and his eyes darken. Without any warning he lifts me up onto the counter top, like I weigh no more than a bag of flour, and I wrap my legs around his waist and stare down at him. “What now?” I say, my voice husky.

“Well we could talk, or kiss, or….” he wiggles his shoulders slightly and runs a hand down my thigh, his touch smooth against my tights. 

“Or?” I question teasingly. I know where his mind is, I also know I don’t want to go there tonight. I don’t want to rush things this time round, and my mind goes back fleetingly to my brother and Graham in the car outside. We didn’t even discuss a hotel for tonight, or return flights, or a plan of any sort really. It’s not like I’ve even packed enough for more than a night, but somehow none of that matters right now. I’m here with him, and even though we’re in a kitchen piled high with dirty plates and ripped open canapes boxes, and even though my face is stained with tears this feels like something out of a fairytale. 

But still, I can’t ignore the fact my brother and Graham have been sitting outside for a while now and however sweet and supportive they’ve both been I know their patience might be wearing thin.

“Harry”, I start. “You should know, my brother and bodyguard are waiting for me in the car outside”

“Right”. He was resting his head against my chest but now he pulls back, “well we should go and get them. You’ll all stay here”.

“You can’t just offer us your Mum’s house, she doesn’t even know I’m here!” I hit his shoulder lightly, “It’s rude”.

He waves my protestations away. “She’ll be fine with it, she loves you. Anyway, there’s not a hotel anywhere around here…. unless you want to sleep in the car?”

“Staying here sounds like a good idea, thank you” I say quickly and he grins and lifts me off the side, my legs bumping against his as my boots land on the tiles. He pauses for a minute, and we just look at each other - drinking the other up, then he snakes his hands round my waist and begins to kiss me, slow at first then deepening. I trail my fingers down his chest flicking his buttons apart gently, not enough to part them just gently teasing and he groans against my mouth. Taking control I push harder against him, like I could fuse my skin with his and that would be a normal thing. He has me up against the counter the hard top pressing into my back and our hands are all over each other. Everywhere he presses burns hot and he moves his hands into my hair, lips working their way up my neck. My breathing is shallow as I throw my neck back to the ceiling and grip at the waistband of his jeans, trying to keep myself somewhat steady. His mouth finds its way back to mine and our tongues meet frantically, and this time round we’re not lost in translation we’re both exactly sure what we’re doing. What this means. 

We’re meshed together, not sure where his limbs stop and mine begin. He moves his hands so they’re cupping my jaw and he slows down then and just kisses me softly. His lips linger on mine and then he leans back, and I’m gratified to see his eyes are glassy, his breathing just as uneven as mine.

“Wow” He says, playing gently with a button on my coat “just wow”. 

“Wow” I agree and I lay my palm flat against his chest, against his heart which is beating just as hard as mine. We stand staring at each other, smiling from ear to ear, until the slam of the front door makes us both jump. Harry grins and holds out his hand for me to take, “Taylor?”

“Yeah?” his eyes are warm, melting emeralds.

 

“I lov-” he starts, and I press my finger to his lips cutting him off. “Harry, no… Not yet. Can we just……. take it slow.”

He nods, slowly, uncertainly, and then takes my hand and leads me out the kitchen.


	10. Into the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FYI - Some mature content towards the end of the chapter....

Morning breath is gross. I know I shouldn’t care, but I do. So I shift to the end of the bed and slide out, trying to keep every movement quiet. Tip-toeing across the room I crouch down and root through my handbag trying to find the mints I always keep on me.

“What are you doing?” the duvet cover seems to question me, and I pause and throw my glance back over to the bed.

“Just, uh…. you know” I say, stalling for time and - bingo - find the box of mints and pop one into my mouth. The duvet cover shifts again and Harry emerges from its depths rubbing his eyes and fastening a slow, sleepy smile on me. 

“You look beautiful” he says, his voice slightly croaky and I push my hair back only slightly self consciously. I haven’t been in this scenario for a long time, waking up with a guy. There were a few self conscious fumbles with men I casually dated over the last few years, nothing memorable and certainly nothing serious and I always left straight after. Adjusted my clothes, got into my car, and went home. This is a new kind of raw, me shuffling back into bed with him and rolling into his back, like we’ve been doing this every day for months. 

“Morning” Harry whispers softly, his lips gently nibbling on my ear. He pulls the duvet back around us both curving his body into mine, and wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Morning” I say softly. “How did you sleep?”

“Amazing….. How ‘bout you?” His breath is warm on me, and I shudder slightly. I want him, but no good can come of rushing things. Slow and steady this time round Taylor, I remind myself, so I try to satisfy myself by running my hands across his arm. Rhythmically, brushing the thin hairs down and back. 

“Best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages” I reply, voice low.

“Good…… Taylor?” he says, and I can tell he’s falling back to sleep. His breathing is deep and heavy, and his arm slackens on me slightly.

“Hmmm?” my eyelids are fluttering as well, pulling me back to sleep. 

“How long can you stay?” He murmurs.

“Maybe a couple of days, I have to get back and rehearse for New Year’s”

“We’d better make the most of these two days then” and he squeezes me tightly before we both drift off, curled up in each other.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

We’re in the woods behind Harry’s Mom’s house and they stretch for miles. Nothing but bare branches, frost coated ground, and blue sky stretching as far as the eye can see. The only sound in the air is birdsong. That, and the crunching of ground underfoot as Harry and I stroll in silence. His hand is gripped in mine, fingers laced, and we’re in comfortable silence. There’s nobody else around for miles, or so it feels like, because in the hour we’ve been walking we’ve not come across a single soul.

“What’cha thinking?” Harry’s voice filters into my thoughts.

“Oh, just loving how peaceful it is out here. Like, this could be our private garden or something” He laughs and releases my hand, moving his arm around my shoulders instead and I swing round and grab his waist. 

“It’s always quiet out here. I guess because it’s a small village and people around here are spoilt for country walks. There’s a lot of woods to choose from y’know?” 

“I guess, but I didn’t believe you when you said we wouldn’t be spotted” I say.

Harry laughs, and points up into the tree closest to us. “Well unless that owl is a paparazzi, I think we’re ok”

“There’s an owl up there?” my voice rises in excitement. I’ve never seen an owl in real life before, never ever.

He laughs and stops, pointing again, “See. Up there. Third branch up, looking quite pissed off”

“Oh that’s awesome. Wait, I need to get a photo” I pull my phone from a pocket, quickly clicking onto the camera.

“Can I be in the picture?” Harry asks, with a slow-spreading smile.

“Don’t be ridiculous” I wave him to one side with a grin, “the owl does not want to share his portrait with you”

“You sure, because I could be just..” he jumps into my shot and tries a variety of silly poses, “like this”. I grin and take two pictures. One with Harry acting up, and one with just the haughty looking owl. “There, happy?” I show him and he smiles, before kissing me gently. “Very happy”.

I blush and he drapes his arm back around my shoulders and pulls me in. “What kind of owl was that anyway? I’m sending the picture to Ella, I want to look knowledgable”

“Barn owl, I think” he takes my phone and squints at the picture. “Yeah yeah, Barn owl. We learnt about them in school”

“Cool” I disentangle my arm from Harry’s waist and tap out a quick text to Ella ‘Barnaby the Barn Owl says Hi! Miss you lots xxxx’

“You named him?” His face hovers over my phone, and I wrench it away with a joking glare slipping it back into my coat pocket. 

“Well yeah, he can’t just be the sad little nameless owl. That’s tragic”

“So tragic” he straightens his face, “I thought he looked like a Nigel myself. Barnaby was a cop out name on your part”.

“No. It. Was. Not” I open my mouth in mock outrage and punctuate each word with a light smack onto his arm. “Wait, stop” he yelps. We’re both laughing now and he holds his hands up in surrender, so I mirror him and place my hands onto his with slight pressure. Pushing him ever so slightly backwards. “Say Barnaby is a nice name, say it!” 

He’s grinning at me, a spark in his eyes, “It’s a nice name” he says quietly, fixing his eyes onto mine and leaning in. His mouth pushes against mine, and I let him in pushing my tongue back against his. Soft lips work on mine, teasing, his hands are in my hair and mine in his. He’s pressed to me, moving his hand across to my face, cupping my jaw and gently biting on my lip. I flutter my eyes, involuntarily, as we come up for air. Breathing uneven. “I forget how much I missed that” I say, and I’m not second guessing my words with him this time round. I feel bold, because when you know somebody is equally in love with you it takes the fear away. Makes you brave. 

Not that I’m in the place to tell Harry I love him…… yet. I stopped him last night when he tried to tell me, determined to manage both our expectations this time round. I fell asleep with his arms wrapped around my waist, backed tightly into his chest, wearing his old purple Jack Wills hoodie and although the butterflies danced I tried to stay sensible. Although being with Harry in the middle of nowhere feels like a little slice of heaven, I know better than to let myself get carried away. Real life isn’t far away for either of us.

I’m focused back by Harry planting a kiss on my forehead. Anything but chaste, he lingers, fire burning into my cold skin. “I missed it too” he says, and stands back linking his fingers back with mine. We stroll down the path again, Harry swinging our arms together in an exaggerated motion, both of us taking care to avoid standing in horse poo. The countryside is a glamorous place, and I stifle a laugh as Harry takes a running leap over a puddle of water pulling me with him. Letting go of my hand, he walks backwards hopping, mud all over his boots. 

“So, um, does Ella know where you are?” Harry says, all in a rush. I look up and see his eyes are purposefully running away from mine, focusing everywhere else, and I realise with a jolt that he’s nervous. 

“Well no” I start, “I guess she’ll think I’m in Nashville, with the nature and the owl and everything” I gesture around me, just to cover my uncertainty. I’m not sure where he’s going with this but he’s making me equally nervous. “Right, and would you…. would you tell her?”

“You want me to tell her or you want to know if I was going to tell her anyway?” I ask uncertainly and he shrugs. “I dunno, I just….. I want our friends to know”.

“Me too” I purse my lips, and slow my pace. “I don’t want to rush though, like, couldn’t this be our secret for a little while?”

“You mean a secret relationship?” he says slowly, almost like he’s testing out the words as they run through his lips. 

“Well yeah…. I mean….. we weren’t exactly going to shout it from the rooftops right? And I guess the less people that know the less chance there is of something leaking to the press, so….” I tilt my head and look at him, “What do you think?”

“Guess it could be kind of....” he meets my eye with a cheeky smile, “kind of exciting… There are people that’ll need to know though, if we can be dating ninja’s”

“Dating ninja’s?” I skip over another puddle towards him and swing my arm around his neck, “I like the sound of being a dating ninja”. He laughs, nibbling at my lip, “yep, could be kinda exciting. Secret rendezvous, dinner parties on the floor of hotel rooms, sex in award show bathrooms…” his hand inches up my coat and down the waist band of my jeans, but I flick him back with a warning glare and a wag of my finger. “Not so fast Styles”.

He grins, “Anyway, we’ll need to tell a few people. Just the ones who can help us sneak around”

“Well Graham already knows” I offer, running my hand down the edge of his coat. “so I guess I can make sure that he’s the one who helps us out”

“Could be kinda stressful for him” Harry smiles, “might need to give the man a raise. He’s already spent a freezing cold night outside Central Park when you couldn’t keep your hands off me”. I nudge him gently, and look at him, “do you have anyone on your team you can trust not to blab?” I ask. “Yeah, Mick. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, he’s a good guy.” he says.

“Cool, and I wanted to…. I mean….. the other guys… they’re ok with me, right?” I ask tentatively.

“Yeah, Niall loves you!” he answers but I wave a dismissive hand, “I know Niall and I are cool, I’m just not so sure about the other three”. He pauses for a minute and then shrugs, like he’s decided not to sugar coat it. “I mean, they don’t have a problem with you personally. They just get a bit pissed off that we’re asked about you in every interview”.

“That’s fair I guess” I say softly, “but you’re like positive they don’t hate me?”

“Why would they hate you? They barely know you” Harry says, his eyes widening. 

“I don’t know, just, I’ve seen the look Louis gives when I’m mentioned or he sees me or whatever. It’s weird” I sigh, but I can tell by the perplexed look on Harry’s face that he doesn’t get it, so I drop it, and say, “are you going to tell them?”

“The lads? Yeah, think so. We do spend everyday together, so it would be bit strange if I didn’t”. He pulls his scarf a little tighter around his neck as the wind picks up, then wiggles his eyebrows at me as if a sudden thought has occurred to him, “Ed” he says with a smirk. “We need to tell Ed. He’ll murder us if he finds out any other way”.

“True that” I say with a smile, “I’ll let you tell him, but only because I want a voice memo of the two of you discussing feelings”. I say the last part with a Broadway like sing-song edge, and Harry aims a joking kick at me. 

On and on we walk, deeper into the woods until there’s not even a glimpse of anything else behind the trees and all I can see is Harry. He’s clutching my hand, stopping every so often to marvel at a small piece of nature and kiss me. I allow myself a little smile as I remember Austin leaving this morning, hot tailing it back to New York on a commercial flight with Graham in tow, he’d slammed the car boot after packing in his holdall and come back to the doorstep where Harry and I were standing. “Told you so” he had said, pointing back and forward between us. He’d then knocked Harry’s fist and slapped him on the back, given me a hug and a whispered “You can thank me later” before getting into the car. Graham hadn’t wanted to leave, was concerned about my safety with no security present and didn’t want that on his conscience but I was insistent. “It’s not like I’m planning on doing anything exciting” I’d tried to reassure him as Harry coughed and acted offended in the background. “We’re just hanging out here and no one knows where I am”.

In the end it was lovely Anne and Robin who finally persuaded Graham to go back and spend the rest of the holidays with his family. “She’ll be fine here” Anne said to him, “there’s barely anyone around and Harry has security on standby anyway, should they need”. So, Austin and Graham had left and I was still here, feeling surprisingly comfortable and natural around Harry’s family. More so than I thought I would, even though they’d been so kind when I visited before. I wondered if there was too much water under the bridge, but I needn’t have worried. An uncharacteristically shy Harry had led me forward last night and re-introduced me to his Mum. Her eyes had gone wide before she’d looked back and forward between us both and clapped her hands together with a big smile, then folded me into a warm hug. Gemma had been on the couch, in the now empty lounge, finishing off a glass of champagne and giving us both a big thumbs up. Considering how I’d felt about the whole ‘turning up in England’ thing, it really couldn’t have gone any better.

But now we just had to worry about the future, about what was going to happen once we left this bubble. I had to be back in New York in only a matter of days, and although Harry had longer off I also knew he couldn’t come to New York. He had plans for New Year with friends in Los Angeles, and I wasn’t about to ask him to change them. We’d decided to be a secret, I just didn’t know how we were going to make that happen yet, and I suspected neither did Harry.

His hand tightens a little on mine, his fingers tracing a pattern on my palm. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asks and I nod, raising an eyebrow, curious. “This is the most perfect day I’ve had in a long while”.

“Me too” I reply, with a wide smile. Because, it’s true. It is.

Slowly, surely, he brings his lips onto mine. Teasing me, gently at first, but as I push back it’s more intense. We’re up against a tree before I can second guess it, and it’s high school level at first. Hot and passionate, but innocent. Just kissing. But then I duck my hands under his coat, feeling his warmth, and then lift up his shirt pushing onto his skin. He moans in my ear, and I run my hands down his chest, grinding onto him before I can exercise any self control. He’s under my shirt as well, brushing at my nipples, before pulling my bra down and putting his mouth onto me.

Red hot, burning courses through me. Tingling all the way to my toes, and I can see Harry’s trembling as he pulls back, looking at me like, ‘is this ok?’ So I nod, because I’ve never wanted anything more, ever, and he takes off his coat laying it on the floor of the woods, then lowers us both onto it. He’s shaking, and loses grip on me the last few inches to the ground so I land less seductively than I’d like, but still. I kiss him again, fiercely this time, hands gripping his biceps, hips grinding into him. Wanting him, now. 

“Do you…. Do you have?” I ask, and my breath is coming in short, desperate, bursts but he understands. 

“Yeah” he looks like he’s having trouble focusing, but fishes underneath us both in his coat and pulls out a condom, “here”.

With shaking hands we partially undress each other, both shaking, trembling, and he lowers onto me. I watch as he enters me and his eyes almost roll back into his head, before we start to move. His hands on the small of my back, the other in my hair, kissing my neck to stifle his moans. He’s breaking me apart with every thrust, every small bit of pleasure, never breaking eye contact. Watching as I writhe beneath him, sweat breaking out all over us both. He’s touching me, short, fast, pulsing strokes and I remember he taught me how good an orgasm should be. How a good lover can bring you to the brink three times in an hour, make you scream each time, so I push into him again. Whispering what I’ll do to him when I get him in a bed. I forget about the fact we’re in the woods, on a flimsy coat, jeans down by our ankles. I forget that I wanted to wait, imagined we’d be surrounded by champagne and candles. I forget about everything but him. 

“Baby” he says, between moans, “I’m close….. fuck, I’m close”. 

“Oh God…. Oh God…. Nearly” I shudder, as he falls apart inside me and collapses down onto me. He’s shaking but he stays there, working me, biting on my skin softly, focusing only on me. Finally I feel myself go, and I’m vibrating in his arms, hearing his soft whispers of “Taylor…. Oh God… baby” almost as if from a distance, and I close my eyes gripping onto him as it ebbs away.

“Jesus” Harry says roughly, and he braces his arm and pulls his weight off me slightly. “That was unexpected. Fucking amazing” he raises an eyebrow at me, “but unexpected”.

“That was the hottest thing ever” I breathe out hard, and then laugh incredulously, “I can’t believe we just did that. Imagine if….” I trail off, and mime walking legs with my fingers. Harry grins, slow and self-satisfied, “Yeah, but they didn’t… told you no one ever comes here”.

I slap him lightly across the head, and pull my jeans up. “Hey baby?” He says softly.

“Yeah?” and I lean back over, “do you think we’re out of the woods yet?” 

It earns him a kick.


	11. It's a Secret

I’m whispering to myself. First sign of madness, but I’m nervous and I can’t help it. “You got this Taylor. You have absolutely got this, you can do this. You can, you will. It will be fine, nobody will see you…… DUCK!”

“What the hell?” a petite dark haired girl jerks round from the passenger seat to stare at me, bug eyed.

“I’m not here, I’m not here” I gesticulate wildly up at Selena, from my position on the floor of the blacked-out SUV. 

“What?” Selena furrows her brow, “Tayl-”

“Turn round” I hiss, and bang the back of her seat, “turn around. They’ll see!”

Her eyes finally widen and she whirls around, sliding back into her front seat position. Just in time. I flatten myself back against the seat, trying to wedge myself as far into the corner as I can, praying I’m out of sight. The normal banging on the side of the car starts, flashing bright lights fill the dark, and Graham slows right down to inch his way through the mass of paparazzi swarming the car. 

“I’m a sacrificial lamb up here” Selena says, dead pan, elbow balanced on the window and twirling her hair around a perfectly manicured nail. “How depressing. 10 points if you can break a Pap’s toe Graham” 

“No, because then we’d have to stop and pretend to care! And I would be discovered and that’s not ok!” A last bam on the bonnet, and we’re out. Graham hits the accelerator as we clear the scrum and hit the freeway. 

“Wow, that is some attitude. Now what are you doing?” Selena twists round in her seat, pulling her seat belt to allow her to view me properly. 

“I’m just chilling, on the floor” I make some jerky rap movements with my hands, “you know how it is”. 

“Taylor, can I recommend you get off the floor and buckle up?” Graham cuts in. “We’ve got a 40 minute drive out of town” 

“Any cars following?” I can hear the anxious note in my own voice as I pull off my over-sized earrings and slip them into my clutch bag. Ow, those things burn. 

“No. In the clear” Selena answers, before drawing her brows together “Wait a minute” she says slowly, “where are you going that’s 40 minutes outside LA?”

“Can we drop Sel off on the way?” I ask Graham, ignoring her question and pulling myself and my dress back onto the seat. Yellow chiffon floating all around me, I pull out my phone aware of Selena’s eyes on me and she is not having it. 

“Um, excuse me?” Fingers. Clicking in my face. “You better not be going to some mad house party without me?!”

“Oh please, as if I would!” I roll my eyes but avoid hers, scrolling rapidly through my messages. 

“Well I don’t know! You are being so shady right now”. 

“Am I?” I smirk slightly, knowing it will infuriate her further and she gives me a look before unbuckling her seat belt and crawling into the back seat with me. Graham tightens his grip on the steering wheel and casts a tense look at us in the rearview mirror, “Can we be careful please?”

“Sure” Selena quips back brightly, quickly plugging in her seat belt. “Sorry Graham. So, why did we leave the party early only for you to ditch me?” she asks, all sass and narrowed eyes. 

“Ditch you? You told me you needed sleep so I’m dropping you off” I shake my head slowly, and she raises an eyebrow. “Please. I thought we were going to get In-N-Out and watch TV. It’s only 9.30pm, you cannot be going home”

“I… Um,” I try to buy time, dropping my phone back into my clutch and snapping the lock, but she’s got me. Trying to leave the InStyle party early discreetly wearing canary yellow hadn’t been an easy feat, and my girlfriends were less than impressed as I tapped them on the shoulders one by one and explained I had to go and I was gutted, but what could I do when I had such an early start for work in the morning? They were pissed, but they brought it, although my phone had started buzzing with pictures as soon as I’d got in the car; Jaime, Este, and Danielle posing with fizzing cocktails, Alana planting a kiss on a mystery man’s cheek. Selena had swanned out of the restroom and collided with Graham and I as we’d slipped out the back towards the parking lot. “We’re making a break for it” I’d explained quickly, as Graham moved in front of us to shield our conversation from view. “Sorry to be a buzzkill, but I have such an early start in the morning”. Selena had flung one look back at the packed dance floor and then crumpled her long white dress up in one hand and insisted on coming with us. I mean, it’s not like I could be honest right there and then, so I just had to shrug and she came with us. 

“Something is going on” Selena is right up next to me, fastened into the middle seat belt, as we wind through the suburbs. Graham raises his eyebrows in the mirror at me, and I can see the edge of his jaw pulled into an uncomfortable grimance. 

Selena clocks it and jerks an accusing finger to the driver seat. “Graham obviously knows and I don’t know?!”

“This is crazy!” I pull my hands down to my lap in frustration sending chiffon flying, I’m just staying closer to the photo shoot I’m doing tomorrow, that’s all.”

“Bullshit” she says bluntly.

“What?!”

“I’m calling bullshit. Come on Taylor, how long have I known you? What’s going on?” Her eyes are pinioning into mine, and this is it. I have to tell her. This is Selena, I can’t sneak around trying to pull the wool over her eyes, I’ve always told her everything. 

“Um….Well ….. I just..” I stumble over the words not exactly sure how to put it. Selena is giving me that look, like, just get it out Taylor. So I do. “I just….Harry has this house and I’m going to stay with him for the night” I spill out the final part in an almighty rush and Selena just stares. She just stares at me like that was the last thing on earth she expected me to say. 

The atmosphere in the car is tense, Graham hunched over the wheel delicately trying to ignore our conversation, and Selena and I both frozen in the back seat. Finally, her voice explodes into the silence. “Harry? Harry Styles?” She questions, and her voice rises with every note until she’s almost screaming at me.

Before I can even get a word in, she waves her hands in front of her, cutting me off. “Of course Styles, like you know any other Harry’s. Wait. Hold up! Are you, like, fuck buddies?” she asks, completely incredulous, but there’s this wide smile spreading its way across her cheeks and the pitch of her voice is almost back to normal. 

“Not exactly” I twist my fingers together, and purse my lips pensively. In all honesty I’m wondering where to start. Because my world has turned on its head since I last saw Selena and I haven’t told her about any of it. I haven’t shared the walk in Central Park which sent my pulse racing or my impulsive dash to England when I was on the verge of losing Harry forever. I haven’t told her how despite my best intentions we both lost control in those deserted woods and it was the wildest, craziest, hottest thing I have ever done. She doesn’t know we’ve been sneaking secret Skype sessions in between our crazy work schedules or that I missed him so much last week it felt like a literal ache inside of me, and I ended up sitting in the bathroom of my private plane watching a fan made video of him with my headphones in. But I don’t tell her any of that, instead I say, “We’re just trying, like, we want to give things a shot again”

“By things, you mean relationship?” I nod and she whistles out, eyebrows raised. “Taylor, this is huge. This is……crazy. You wanna take all that again, really?” Her voice hovers on the unspoken, because it doesn’t need to be said. We both get it. Selena more than most understands the pressure fans and media can put on a relationship, understands how hard it is to keep a flame burning when you both have jobs that keep you oceans apart. 

“I’m not even thinking of all that right now, I’m just….. living it. We’re taking it one day at a time and seeing where it goes” I pull anxiously at the rings on my fingers and will her to understand. 

“Right, ok, but when did this happen?” Selena looks like she’s having trouble processing everything, her hands are glued to her temples. 

“Over Christmas we met up and decided that we still…. you know, had a lot of feelings there and-”

“Wait wait wait, when did you meet up over Christmas?” She interrupts, confused stare on me. But I’m saved by the bell. “We’re here” Graham announces, pulling the car tight into the curb. The residential street is deserted, which is a relief because I didn’t even think to slide down the seat and hide. 

She looks at me for a long minute and then rolls her eyes and swings her legs out of the car grudgingly. “This is not over!” She points at me, arm extended. “ I am seeing you this week and we are having wine and I want more detail! Text me” She stalks on her heels up the drive of her condo, key already out, evening gown trailing behind. Stopping by her door, she turns and gives me one final all-knowing look and then the door slams and she’s gone. 

I sink back into my seat and watch as Graham programmes the sat nav. The last few weeks have been crazy, the blissful two days we spent in Cheshire almost a distant memory now. I close my eyes and I can still feel him pressed up against me on the couch watching Home Alone, laughing between sneaking kisses. I remember Anne cheerfully popping her head around the door to let us know she and Robin were leaving the house to run some errands. Errands that didn’t exist, they were just trying to give us some much desired space. We were bolting off the couch and on his bed before the door had even slammed, frantically tearing clothes off of each other. We weren’t even close to discreet, and I flush a little too late as I wonder what Anne must have thought. At the time I couldn’t even think of anything but him and the way he felt inside me, couldn’t think about not taking every opportunity to be in him, with him. We’d sat by the fire and played Scrabble and I wondered how it was possible to feel so part of his family in only a matter of days. Robin high-fiving me with a grin when I scored an eight letter word and Gemma kicking off when Harry cheated, throwing her letters in his face and storming off while Anne and I dissolved into hysterics and I wondered if you could haemorrhage inside from laughing. And when we picked ourselves off the floor of the woods and walked slowly, breathlessly back to the house all the while catching each others dazed expressions and laughing because we couldn’t really believe we’d done that. Been that reckless. I’d teased him mercilessly about the condom he’d luckily had in his coat and he flushed bright red, insisting in an offended tone he was responsible but no, he hadn’t been expecting that to happen and he definitely wasn’t being presumptuous. I’d caught onto his hands then and pushed myself into him for a teasing kiss, whispering that I was glad he’d had it, so glad. And all the while we were wrapped up in each other I kept telling myself to hold onto the feeling because it wouldn’t last, not once I was on that flight back to New York. We’d stayed up late the final night and watched the hours pass by as he held me and we pretended reality wasn’t calling. The plan was never for him to come to the airport with me, we knew we were playing with fire but he came anyway. Bunkered down in warm coats in the back seat, his arm locked around my shoulders, eyes never breaking contact with mine. I’d poured everything into our final kiss as Robin dropped me at departures, my hands clutching at Harry’s neck like he was the only real thing I’d ever felt. His head nuzzled into my neck, “I promise” He’d said, almost fiercely. “I promise we’ll make this work”. I’d torn myself out of the car then and straight under the arm of Graham who had flown back to England to whisk me through to check-in and straight onto a private jet. His words ran through my mind again as I pulled off the beret that concealed my blonde bob and clipped in my seat belt. Despite my earlier protestations that we needed to take it slow I was in far too deep, but I knew I couldn’t stop this train even if I wanted to.

“I’m pretty sure this is it” Graham says, interrupting my reverie. We’re pulling into a parking bay on the coast, below us the beach opens up vast and wide. There’s one house here, a sprawling mansion hideaway set into the cliffs and nestled away from prying eyes in it’s very own cove. There’s not a soul in sight and the closest houses seem miles away. Their lights sparkle at us from across the bay and I shiver slightly. As long as no one spots us here we’re good, we can disappear without suspicion. 

I wave away Graham’s offer of help and pull my holdall from from the boot, slinging it over my shoulder and taking the steps down to the beach two at a time. Sea breeze in my hair and butterflies are rising in my stomach, anticipating.

I saw him 8 days ago. Exactly. Karlie lent us her flat for the night and made tracks to her boyfriends, while Harry snuck into New York wearing a comically large hat and a blanket coat. We explored each other again that night, more than once, wrapping up in white sheets afterwards and holding each other while we prepared for the next round both our chests heaving. I’d found him sitting by the window as the early sun started to rise and he’d smiled and pulled me into his lap. “Can’t sleep?” I’d questioned, slipping a wandering finger down his chest and he shrugged, lips already on my shoulder. “I just don’t want to leave. I don’t want to do anything but be here with you”. I couldn’t answer him. Couldn’t be honest and lay myself bare in that moment, tell him I felt the same. So I took him again, right there on Karlie’s cold wooden sitting room floor and I looked into his eyes as he came and I knew that he understood everything. 

He’s waiting for me. A dark figure in profile against the rock face, shirt billowing out around him in the gentle wind. I can’t see his face in the darkness, but he’s grinning. I know he is. He’s down the beach house steps in a flash, almost running towards me, and then his lips are on mine and he’s pulling my bag from me, taking the weight. “I missed you”.

“I missed you” a giggle is pushing through my lips, and I can’t rationalise this. This happiness with him that I could never have predicted. This is insanity.

“You look beautiful. This dress…” he trails off, appreciative fingers working down my shoulder onto the gown. “How was the party?”

“It was good. It was fun. The girls are still there” I hover my fingers lightly onto his jaw, and breathe him in. Vetiver and sage. 

“Yeah?” His lips are working into my hair now, hands playing gently at the base of my neck. A cough from behind startles us both and Harry’s hands leave me, chastely dropping to his side. Graham is standing behind us, flushed. “I’ll be back. Call me when you’re ready Taylor”. I nod slightly, smiling at him. Hoping he can read me, and know that I can never thank him enough for helping us shield this fledging relationship. “Thanks Graham” I say, but it doesn’t seem enough. Could never be enough. Harry and I watch until Graham disappears into the distance, headlights lighting up the empty road, and then Harry turns towards me again.

“Come on” he says quietly, lacing his fingers through mine and leading me up the steps to the house. “Whose place is this?” I ask. We’re on a wooden veranda, the house behind us and the beach stretching out in front. “One of the Executives at the record label. I told him I needed to get out of my place, find some inspiration for the new album and he offered me his house. He’s in Europe skiing with his kids” He flashes me a cheeky smile and runs his hand back through his hair, “do you like?”

I fling my arms around his neck in response. “I love it, it’s perfect”. He holds my gaze and then simply smiles before moving back and catching my hand in his, “you haven’t seen anything yet”

We step down onto a smaller veranda, and at first my eyes don’t adjust. But….. Candles. Candles everywhere, on every spare inch of decking, arranged around a bubbling, steaming, hot tub. Oh. 

“You did this?” I turn to Harry, and clap my hands together. “Really?”

Colour is rising in his cheeks, and he places his hands on my waist and pulls me to him. “Yeah, I mean. I wanted it to be special. We don’t get so much time together. Is it ok?”

“Harry, it’s so……” I trail off and Harry puts his lips back on mine and then we’re both gone.   
______________________________________________________________________________

He makes me dinner later, after he’s had me in the hot tub and on the couch. I sit on him as we eat pasta, legs entangled with his, cheeks flushed. “I told Selena tonight” I confide, and he glances up at me, a smile playing about his lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. She was, um, pretty surprised”. I wiggle my eyebrows at him. 

“Is pretty surprised an understatement?” he whispers, a grin spreading onto his face and we both start laughing. “Yep” I say, “I have to meet her this week to, her words, explain everything. And I have to bring wine”.

“The wine part sounds fun….” He says, picking up his own wine glass while trailing kisses up my arm and I laugh. “She is not going to be impressed that I’ve been hiding you….this…. us”. I throw my hands up in mock despair, and he nibbles gently on my shoulder causing the heat in my belly to stir again. “Selena gets it” he says confidently, eyes reaching mine, “and she’ll understand”. He’s right about Selena, I know he is and I know she’ll be supportive, but a part of me wishes we could keep this under wraps forever. Just us. I lift up my wine glass and take a sip, thoughts racing through my mind as I look out to sea. 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

I wake up on my side with him curled around me, and surprisingly all I can think about is coffee. Gently, tentatively, I lift his arm and wiggle out feet hitting the thick cream carpet soundlessly. There’s a dressing gown hanging on the door and I pull it on snuggling down into the quilted neckline. There’s a soft scent of jasmine lingering on it and I wonder for a moment what the Executive’s wife would say if she could see us now, Harry passed out in their marital bed and I’m wandering her hallway in her dressing gown like I own the place. I smirk slightly and make my way into the kitchen, where daylight is filtering through the floor to ceiling windows and casting pretty patterns onto the mosaic floor. 

I hum under my breath as I pull food from the fridge; Bacon, eggs, avocado, and then I hunt every cupboard for pans. With the food cooking I pull my notepad out of my holdall and open it on the last folded page. My thoughts and feelings from the last months are scribbled across its pages, some more heavily outlined than others, some already crossed out and rejected. I take a pen from the pot on the side and run my tongue along the inside of my lips. Inside I’m fizzing, playing back last night with him and my hands fly across the page as lyrics and words just tumble out unfiltered. My coffee craving this morning is forgotten, replaced by the thrill of a lyric and verse coming together.

“Morning” and I spin around slamming my notebook shut. He’s at the doorway, shirtless, with the bed sheet wrapped around his waist. He looks so sleepy and heart-stoppingly cute that I almost think ‘screw breakfast’, but his eyes light up at the sight of bacon in the pan and he wanders towards me picking up the cafetiere as he goes before kissing me gently. “You’re so beautiful” he says softly and I feel colour rising up my collarbone. His eyes wander to my open notebook on the side and his eyes crease into a smile and then he kisses me again, arms around my back and the cold glass of the cafetiere against my skin. 

A whirring sound from above pulls us back from the brink. A helicopter. And we both look at each other, stricken. Paparazzi. 

Harry moves at the speed of lightening pulling me away from the huge windows and backwards into the master bedroom. He’s at the window before I can even comprehend it, yanking down the blinds so forcefully I’m surprised they don’t break and then he’s by my side again. He encircles me into his arms and pulls me onto the bed, never taking his eyes off the window. “It’s ok,” he murmurs. “We’re fine in here”.

“Who would have said anything?” I force out into the darkened room, and my anger and wrung-out voice is directed at Harry who automatically moves away from me, shocked. “Who could you have told that would blab?”

“The only person that knows is Mick, and he wouldn’t say anything” he shoots back. “He’s signed confidentiality clauses up to his eyeballs and even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t do it.” There’s hurt flashing in his eyes and I’m instantly guilty. Harry isn’t to blame here. I was the one hiding on the floor of the car leaving one of the most hyped up after-parties of the year in a bright yellow dress surrounded by a swarm of Paparazzi. I had a fit of optimism and it totally backfired. 

“They obviously saw me.” I’m clutching onto the bed sheets so hard my knuckles are white, “last night. I was so stupid, how could I think that-”

He’s by my side again in an instant, cool reassuring hands cupping my face. “It’ll be fine. They haven’t seen anything so they don’t have a story. We’ll just ride it out here, and they’ll go.” His voice is steady, but his gaze falls onto the blackout blinds he closed minutes before and he bites his lip. “It’ll be fine” he says again, but I can tell he’s as freaked out as I am. 

The helicopter continues to whir above us and I dig my fingernails into my palm.


End file.
